Scenes of Bohemian Life

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.