Vie De Boheme

First issued in the 1840s and 1850s as linked sketches, this book follows a circle of poor artists and writers in the Latin Quarter of Paris: the poet Rodolphe, the painter Marcel, the musician Schaunard, and the philosopher Colline, together with Mimi, Musette, and other lovers who come and go with money and weather. They pawn coats, dodge landlords, share meals, and shift between garrets and cafes. Episodes are comic and sentimental by turns, and several end in illness or separation. The work is a sequence of scenes of student and artist life, not a single plotted novel and not a guidebook to Paris.

Bound in cream linen blocked with a design in green and brown. Dark brown slipcase.