La Dame aux Camélias

The landmark novel that inspired Verdi’s opera La Traviata, in a sparkling new translation published to coincide with a major new biography of the real-life “Lady of the Camellias”

One of the greatest love stories of all time and the inspiration for Verdi’s opera La Traviata and the Oscar-winning musical Moulin Rouge!, The Lady of the Camellias tells the story of Marguerite Gautier, the most beautiful, brazen, and expensive courtesan in all of Paris. Known to all as “the Lady of the Camellias” because she is never seen without her favorite flowers, she leads a glittering life of endless parties and aristocratic balls, with the richest men in France flocking to her boudoir to lay their fortunes at her feet. But despite having many lovers, she has never really loved—until she meets Armand Duval, young, handsome, and from a lower social class, and yet hopelessly in love with Marguerite.

This new translation—the first in English in more than twenty-five years—is by New York Times Book Review critic Liesl Schillinger and features an introduction by Julie Kavanagh, the acclaimed biographer of the courtesan Marie Duplessis, the lover of Alexandre Dumas fils who inspired the novel.