Henri Murger
Henri Murger was a French author born on March 24, 1822, in Paris, into a family struggling with poverty. He is best known for his work "The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter," which vividly portrays the lives of impoverished artists in 19th-century Paris. This work, published serially, later inspired the opera "La Bohème" by Giacomo Puccini, cementing Murger's legacy in the world of literature and music. Despite achieving some recognition, including being made a member of the Legion of Honor by Napoleon III, Murger faced financial difficulties throughout his life. He worked as a secretary to Count Alexei Tolstoy, yet he struggled with money management even when he had it. Murger's life was marked by hardship, culminating in his premature death at the age of thirty-eight, exacerbated by health issues stemming from malnutrition. He also wrote other novels and plays, but it is his depiction of bohemian life that remains his most significant contribution to literature.
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Henri Murger
French novelist and playwright
- Born: March 24, 1822
- Birthplace: Paris, France
- Died: January 28, 1861
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Henri Murger (myewr-zhehr) once said that “Bohemia is the preface to the hospital, the Academy, or the morgue.” The honor of membership in the French Academy never came to him, but he did spend a long time in hospitals until severe arthritis, aggravated by the malnutrition he suffered during his many years in “Bohemia,” caused his premature death at the age of thirty-eight.
Murger never knew anything but the poverty that was the enduring fact of typical bohemian life. Born in Paris to the family of a poor tailor on March 24, 1822, he existed on his small salary as secretary to Count Alexei Tolstoy. The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter was first published serially, accounting, perhaps, for its structural looseness. A dramatic version, written in collaboration with Théodore Barrière, had an even greater success. Still, Murger, like Charles Baudelaire, a fellow bohemian, had little success in managing money when he had it. Despite his considerable fame and the recognition he received when Napoleon III admitted him to the Legion of Honor, he died penniless on January 28, 1861.
Though he wrote a number of other novels and plays (Le Pays Latin, 1852; Les Buveurs d’eau, 1855; Le Sabot rouge, 1858) and a volume of poetry, Murger is remembered almost exclusively for his novel depicting the lives of the impoverished artists in the Latin Quarter of nineteenth century Paris, the story upon which Giacomo Puccini, half a century later, based his opera La Bohème.
Bibliography
Baldick, Robert. The First Bohemian: The Life of Henry Murger. London: H. Hamilton, 1961.
Montorgueil, Georges. Henri Murger, romancier de la Bohème. Paris: B. Grasset, 1929.
Moss, English Arthur, and Evalyn Marvel. The Legend of the Latin Quarter. New York: Beechhurst Press, 1946.
Seigel, Jerrold. Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930. New York: Viking, 1986.