Camille, The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils

Reading poor Piglet's blog and hearing on Twitter how she is having troubles sleeping, I suggested she find a good book to read in those wee hours of the night when she can find no solace in sleep.

Recommending a good book led me to think of some titles, and one that popped into my head was The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils (see my blog on his père). My incredible well-read Uncle Alvin offered this book to me a few Christmases ago. 

The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux camélias) is a heart wrenching story of a young man who falls in love with a courtesan named Marguerite Gautier. The young man's father, furious, ends the affair, and Marguerite dies soon after from tuberculosis. 

The novel mirrors young Alexandre Dumas' life in many ways, namely in how he himself fell in love with young courtesan called Marie Duplessis.

Young Dumas's life was filled with strife. He was the illegitimate son of novelist Alexandre Dumas and a dressmaker named Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay. When young Dumas was seven years old, his father recognized him as his legitimate son and took him away from his mother. His mother's agony over her son's loss inspired him to write about tragic female characters. 

  Alexandre Dumas, fils, (1824, 1895)

Claiming he needed money, Alexandre Dumas, fils, adapted his novel into a play. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in 1852. It was an instant success, so much so that Guiseppe Verdi set the story to music in what would become the famous opera La Traviata. 

The role of Marguerite Gautier in the theater version of our story has been coveted around the world for decades and great actresses have performed the role: Lilian Gish, Eleonora Duse, Margaret Anglin, Gabrielle Rejane, Tallulah Bankhead, Eve Le Galienne, Isabelle Adjani, Cacilda Becker and, bien sur, the great Sarah Bernhardt. (Oh, feel a blog coming on, will have to write about her!)

Here is a Czech artist Alfons Mucha's poster of Sarah Bernhardt playing Camilla. Exquisite! (Went to Prague recently and saw a collection of his worked in the Mucha Museum - magnifique!)

So, voila, Piglet, if you need a good book, dive into Camille, The Lady of the Camellias, that should distract you. 

Gros bisous de littérature français extraordinaire et a demain!

Love, Charley