The Lady of the Camellias

The Lady of the Camellias
Poster for a performance of the theatrical version, with Sarah Bernhardt (1896)
Written by	Alexandre Dumas, fils
Date premiered	2 February 1852 (1852-02-02)
Original language	French
Genre	novel

La Dame aux Camélias (literally The Lady of the Camellias, commonly known in English as Camille) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. La Dame aux Camélias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about putting the story to music. His work became the 1853 opera La Traviata, with the female protagonist, Marguerite Gautier, renamed Violetta Valéry.

In the English-speaking world, La Dame aux Camélias became known as Camille and 16 versions have been performed at Broadway theatres alone. The title character is Marguerite Gautier, who is based on Marie Duplessis, the real-life lover of author Dumas, fils.

Written by Alexandre Dumas, fils, (1824–1895) when he was 23 years old, and first published in 1848, La Dame aux Camélias is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's brief love affair with a courtesan, Marie Duplessis. Set in mid-19th century France, the novel tells the tragic love story between fictional characters Marguerite Gautier, a demimondaine, or courtesan, suffering from "consumption" (tuberculosis), and Armand Duval, a young bourgeois. Marguerite is nicknamed la dame aux camélias (French for 'the lady of the camellias') because she wears a red camellia when she's menstruating and unavailable for making love and a white camelia when she is available to her lovers.