Murger, Henri

Born Mar. 24 or 27, 1822, in Paris; died there Jan. 28, 1861. French writer.

The son of a concierge, Murger in 1851 compiled his magazine sketches on the life-style of bohemian artists into the book Scenes de la vie de Bohéme (Russian translation, 1963). In this work the tragic truth about the artists, the “wayward sons” of petit bourgeois respectability, acquired the proportions of a legend both humorous and poignant. In 1896, G. Puccini based his opera La Bohéme on the book. Murger later wrote novels depicting the life and mores of the peasants (Propos de ville et propos de theatre, 1853; The Red Sabot, 1860).