La Bohème

by Henri Murger

"Set in the Latin Quarter of 1840s Paris, Henri Murger's La Boheme creates a stark and colorful record of the boisterous, lean, and sensual world of eternal Bohemia. The author, like his character Rudolph, was a dispossessed poet living from hand to mouth while serving his literary apprenticeship in the hustle-and-bustle streets of the artists' quarter. In order to make a little money, Murger created fictional episodes based on his experiences in the heart of Bohemia and sold the first of them in 1847 - for fifteen francs each - to a small literary magazine titled Le Corsaire. From this humble beginning, La Boheme has become an undying tribute to true Bohemians or, as Murger describes them, "those called by art." The episodes first published in Le Corsaire were gathered into a book that sold 70,000 copies. Then in 1849 Theodore Barriere made the story into a play, which became a popular sensation in Paris. And finally Giacomo Puccini transformed Murger's tale into the famous opera, a w