Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

by Alexandre Dumas fils

At an auction of a dead courtesan's belongings in Paris, the narrator buys a copy of Manon Lescaut inscribed by a young man named Armand Duval. Duval later tells him the story of his love for Marguerite Gautier, the woman who always wore camellias: how he became her lover, how they left Paris for the country, how his father intervened, and how he misunderstood her sacrifice until it was too late. Alexandre Dumas fils wrote the novel in 1848, drawing on his own affair with Marie Duplessis, who died of tuberculosis at twenty-three. His stage version followed in 1852 and Verdi's La traviata the year after. The book is franker and more bitter than the opera, with a clear view of how the demi-monde made its money. Read it online in your browser on Vinteuil; the first chapter is free.