LA DAME AUX CAMELIAS 14 dam 6 ka-magya Lady of the This play by Alexandre Dumas, the Younger, first appeared (1848) as a novel written under stress of debts gathered in accumulating ex periences that it in part reflects. The novel was dramatized in 1849, but, owing to the failure of a theatre and curious complications with the censorship, of which a preface gives vivacious account, it was first acted 2 Feb. 1852. Success was immediate and lasting. In mani fold adaptations it has been played in many lands and has engaged the talent of many noted actresses. In America it is known in eight editions as in two as 'The Lady of the Camellias.' It had immediate origin in the life and death at 23 of an acquaintance of the dramatist, Alphonsine Plessis, a Parisian courtesan, once maid on a farm, who died of consumption in 1847. Her unselfish charm was celebrated in a brief funeral address by Theophile Gautier and is commemorated in a much visited monument at the cemetery of Pere La Chaise. Dumas' of the Camel
Marguerite Gautier, is so drawn by a requited love to Armand Duval that she makes all material sacrifices to live wholly with and for him: His father shows her what this will involve for Armand's career. Then, rising to the height of immolation, she deliberately estranges her, lover, sacrificing his esteem and her life to Armand, who learns too late the price of her devotion. The theme of the courtesan redeemed by love is at least as old as Prevost's (Mann
(1731). It had been dramatized by Palissot (1782) and again by Hugo in