Dame Aux Camélias

First published in 1848, this novel follows Marguerite Gautier, a Paris courtesan known for wearing camellias, and Armand Duval, a young man of modest family who becomes her lover. Their affair moves from theatres and supper rooms to a quieter life in the country, where money, consumption, and the demands of Armand's father press on the pair. A narrator who buys Marguerite's effects after her death reconstructs the liaison from a diary and from Armand's account. The book is a sentimental social novel about the terms on which a kept woman may love and the price exacted by family respectability. It stays with one attachment rather than with the wider demimonde.

Bound in dark green artificial silk blocked with a design in white and gold by Sally Lou Smith. Pale green endleaves. Gold slipcase.