Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1851.
12mo of (2) ll., xiii pp., 406 pp. Green half-morocco with corners, spine with raised bands decorated with blind fillets around the panels and gilt tools, gilt top edge, original printed grey wrappers preserved. Devauchelle.
181 x 115 mm.
Original edition of the “masterpiece of Murger” (Carteret).
“The masterpiece of Murger is very rare” (Carteret, II, 180).
“Uncommon. Often foxed.” Clouzot 214.
“He had very difficult beginnings. Welcomed at ‘l’Artiste’ by Arsène Houssaye, he then published in ‘le Corsaire’ (1845–1849) the ‘Scènes de la Bohème’, all of which he had lived through. His talent is made of realism and fantasy; it is full of original wit and sensitivity. As a poet, little will remain of him other than ‘La Chanson de Musette’. He corrected the proofs of his last volume, ‘Les Nuits d’hiver’, on the eve of his death; he possessed grace and abandon, ineffable tenderness, cheerful smiles, the cry of the heart, and spontaneous emotion.”
“Novel by Henri Murger (1822–1861). It is composed largely of articles published in 1847 in a very modest newspaper, ‘Le Corsaire’, of which Murger was one of the editors. The chapters have no apparent connection with one another; they are, as the title of the book indicates, merely ‘scenes from bohemian life’, of true ‘bohemia’. Indeed, in his preface, the author is careful to distinguish it from all other forms of wandering existence that are commonly called by that name. According to Murger, ‘bohemia’ is that first form of existence through which all artists and men of letters must pass before attaining well-established renown (‘La Bohème, c’est le stage de la vie artistique. C’est la préface de l’Académie, de l’Hôtel-Dieu ou de la Morgue’). The principal characters of the book are the musician Schaunard, the poet Rodolphe, the painter Marcel, and the philosopher Colline: having met by chance, at a time when they were all in difficult material circumstances, they decide to form a sort of association in order to face together the pleasant or painful events of their wandering life […].
The cold, dark garret or the small café of Montparnasse in winter, and in summer the boulevards, form the backdrop of this existence that unfolds on the margins of society. Murger himself was also a ‘bohème’, and consequently these scenes have an accent of sincerity that gives them all their value. This book, in which a savory realism, bathed in a tender melancholy, is colored with romantic reflections, pleased contemporaries, and the names of Rodolphe, Musette, Marcel, and Mimi remained, in a way, the symbol of carefree and happy youth.” (Dictionnaire des Œuvres, VI, 64).
Precious copy, in great freshness, of this highly sought-after text.
