La Dame aux Camélias [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION La Dame aux Camélias has never been a novel for which persons of taste and discernment have been able to confess outright enthusiasm. When it appeared in 1848, stern judges declared its subject to be indehcate. Nowadays the blushes spring from a reluctance to admit openly that a four-hankie novel can claim to be literature or even have a serious call on our attention. By any standards, it is not a particularly good book: at most, it falls into G. K. Chesterton's category of 'good bad books'. Yet the judgement of history is clear. However embarrassed some readers have been by her, the Lady has had far more friends than enemies. Since 1848, she has never been much further away than the nearest bookstall, always in print, always available, bound or papercovered, with or without illustrations, annotated or left to speak for herself. Seventy separate editions in her published life—twenty-one since 1945—may be regarded as a sorry commentary on public taste, but countless copies sold are at least evidence of her longevity. It should not be thought, however, that it is merely the French who stand accused. The British were first off the mark with a translation in 1856, followed by the Spaniards in 1859. Since then, Marguerite Gautier has lived, loved and died to the evident satisfaction of Russians, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, the Japanese and others besides, who should all perhaps have known better. But this is only part of the story. Dumas turned the novel, which he wrote in a month, into a play, which took him a week: Act II was dashed off one day in 1849 between lunch and tea. It was blocked at first for commercial reasons and then ran foul of the censor. It was not finally performed until February 1852 when it started its career as the greatest dramatic success of the century. It is impossible to say how many times it has been played throughout the world, but its status may be gauged by the fact that, as each generation has its Hamlet, so Eugénie Doche (the first Marguerite), Bernhardt (who took the play to London and the United States),