Bohemians of the Latin Quarter

Bohemians of the Latin Quarter is the English title of Henri Murger's Scènes de la vie de bohème, a sequence of loosely connected stories collected in French in 1851.

Rodolphe the poet, Marcel the painter, Schaunard the musician, and Colline the philosopher pursue art in Paris while avoiding landlords, pawning possessions, and turning an unexpected meal or a few coins into a celebration. Their lovers—including Mimi and Musette—share both the comedy and the cost of that precarious life.

The episodes move through friendships, quarrels, love affairs, illness, and loss. Murger does not treat poverty as picturesque for long: youthful invention and freedom are continually shadowed by cold rooms, hunger, and the knowledge that bohemia can only be a passing stage.

Its blend of exuberance and melancholy supplied the central characters and situations for later stage works, most famously Puccini's opera La bohème.

"One morning—it was the eighth of April—Alexander Schaunard, who cultivated the two liberal arts of painting and music, was rudely awakened by the peal of a neighbouring cock, which served him for an alarm. "By Jove!" exclaimed Schaunard, "my feathered clock goes too fast: it cannot possibly be today yet!""