Scenes of Bohemian Life (1851) is a novel by Henri Murger. Written at
the beginning of his career as a popular French poet and novelist,
Scenes of Bohemian Life is composed of vignettes inspired by the
author's experience as a starving artist in Paris' Latin Quarter.
Adapted countless times for theater and film, Murger's novel served as
inspiration for Puccini's opera La bohème (1896) and for the hit
musical Rent (1996). "The Bohemians know everything and go everywhere,
according as they have patent leather pumps or burst boots. They are to
be met one day leaning against the mantel-shelf in a fashionable drawing
room, and the next seated in the arbor of some suburban dancing place.
They cannot take ten steps on the Boulevard without meeting a friend,
and thirty, no matter where, without encountering a creditor."
Distinguished by their sense of fashion and impoverished lifestyle,
Paris' Bohemians are part of a historical avant-garde, a cultural
phenomenon found in any artistic society. Living day to day, these
artists and radicals commune with the world as it is, taking nothing and
no one for granted. In Scenes of Bohemian Life, four
friends--Rodolphe, Marcel, Colline, and Schaunard--avoid landlords and
old lovers on the streets of the Latin Quarter, a district known for its
countercultural figures. Hilarious and preeminently human, Scenes of
Bohemian Life is a masterpiece of nineteenth century fiction from a
writer whose lifestyle informed much of his work. With a beautifully
designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of
Henri Burger's Scenes of Bohemian Life is a classic of French
literature reimagined for modern readers.
