Louis-Henri Murger, also known as Henri Murger and Henry Murger (27 March 1822 – 28 January 1861), was a French novelist and poet. He is chiefly distinguished as the author of the 1851 book ''

Scènes de la vie de bohème ''Scenes of Bohemian Life'' (original French title: ''Scènes de la vie de bohème'') is a work by Henri Murger, published in 1851. Although it is commonly called a novel, it does not follow standard novel form. Rather, it is a collection of lo ...

'' (Scenes of Bohemian Life), which is based on his own experiences as a desperately poor writer living in a Parisian garret (the top floor of buildings, where artists often lived) and as a member of a loose club of friends who called themselves "the water drinkers" (because they were too poor to afford wine). In his writing he combines instinct with pathos, humour, and sadness. The book is the basis for the 1896

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

'' La bohème'' by Puccini, Leoncavallo's opera of the same name, and, at greater removes, the zarzuela '' Bohemios'' ( Amadeu Vives), the 1930 operetta '' Das Veilchen vom Montmartre'' ( Kálmán), and the 1996 Broadway musical ''

Rent Rent may refer to: Economics *Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property *Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production *Rent-seeking, attempting to increase one's share of e ...

''. He wrote lyrics as well as novels and stories, the chief being ''La Chanson de Musette,'' "a tear," says Gautier, "which has become a pearl of poetry".

Biography

Murger was born and died in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. He was the son of a Savoyard immigrant who worked as a tailor and janitor for an apartment building in the Rue Saint Georges. He had a scanty and fragmented education. After leaving school at 15 he worked in a variety of menial jobs before securing one in a lawyer's office. While there he also wrote poetry which came to the attention of the French writer Étienne de Jouy. De Jouy's connections enabled him to secure the position of secretary to Count Tolstoi, a Russian nobleman living in Paris. Murger's literary career began about 1841. His first essays were mainly literary and poetic, but under the pressure of earning a living he wrote whatever he could find a market for, turning out prose as he put it, "at the rate of eighty francs an acre". At one point he edited a fashion newspaper, ''Le Moniteur de la Mode'', and a paper for the millinery trade, ''Le Castor''. His position gradually improved when the French writer

Champfleury Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (17 September 1821, in Laon, Aisne – 6 December 1889, in Sèvres), who wrote under the name Champfleury (), was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting an ...

, with whom he lived for a time, urged Murger to devote himself to fiction. His first big success was ''Scènes de la vie de bohème''. In 1851 Murger published a sequel, ''Scènes de la vie de jeunesse''. Several more works followed, but none of them brought him the same popular acclaim. Buste Henry Murger

He lived much of the next ten years in a country house outside Paris, dogged by financial problems and recurrent ill health. In 1859 he received the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

but within two years he was almost penniless and dying in a Paris hospital.

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...

's minister Count Walewski sent 500 francs to help pay his medical expenses, but it was too late. Henri Murger died on 28 January 1861 at the age of 38. The French government paid for his funeral, which from contemporary accounts in ''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of r ...

'' was a great public occasion attended by 250 luminaries from journalism, literature, theatre, and the arts. ''Le Figaro'' also started a fund to raise money for his monument. Hundreds of people contributed and within two months it had raised over 6500 francs.

Spelling of the name

Early in his career, in an effort to make himself appear more "elegant and noticeable", Murger signed his name as "Henry Mürger", the English-looking "y" and German-looking umlaut both being exotic in French.Seigel, p. 35 - though the spelling of Henry rather than

Henri Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mon ...

was also archaic French, having been standard orthography (along with such spellings as loy and roy) prior to c. 1775 and not totally supplanted by "i" until after 1790. After experimenting with other variations he eventually kept the former but dropped the latter, so that all of his best-known works were published under the name "Henry Murger".

Works

* ''Scènes de la vie de bohème'' (1847–49). * ''Scènes de la vie de jeunesse'' (1851). * ''Le Pays latin'' (1851). * ''Propos de ville et propos de théâtre'' (1853). * ''Scènes de campagne'' (1854). * ''Le Roman de toutes les femmes'' (1854). * ''Ballades et Fantaisies'' (1854). * ''Les Buveurs d'eau'' (1854). * ''Le Dessous du panier'' (1855). * ''Le Dernier rendez-vous'' (1856). * ''Les Nuits d’hiver'' (1856). * ''Les Vacances de Camille'' (1857). * ''Le Sabot rouge'' (1860). * ''Madame Olympe'' (1860). In English translation * ''The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter'' (1888). * ''Winter Nights'' (1923).

References

Bibliography *Seigel, Jerrold (1999
''Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930''
JHU Press. *

External links

* * *
''Scènes de la vie de bohème''
Romagnol French edition of 1902 illustrated with etchings by after watercolors by

Charles Léandre Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

, a
Gallica Digital Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murger, Henri 1822 births 1861 deaths Writers from Paris French poets Burials at Montmartre Cemetery French people of German descent French people of Austrian descent 19th-century French novelists French male poets French male novelists 19th-century poets 19th-century French male writers

Biography

Spelling of the name

Works

References

Further reading

External links