Near the beginning of the novel, the narrator finds out that Armand has been sending camellia flowers to Marguerite's grave, to show that his love for her will never die. The story is narrated after Marguerite's death by two men, Armand and an unnamed frame narrator. He shows up at her side as she is dying, surrounded by her friends, and pledges to love her even after her death.

Until Marguerite is on her deathbed, Armand believes that she left him for another man, known as Count de Giray. This idyllic existence is interrupted by Armand's father, who, concerned with the scandal created by the illicit relationship, and fearful that it will destroy Armand's sister's chances of marriage, convinces Marguerite to leave. He convinces her to leave her life as a courtesan and to live with him in the countryside. Īrmand falls in love with Marguerite and ultimately becomes her lover. Marguerite is nicknamed la dame aux camélias ( French for 'the lady of the camellias') because she wears a red camellia when she is menstruating and unavailable for sex and a white camellia when she is available to her lovers.

Set in mid-19th-century France, the novel tells the tragic love story between fictional characters Marguerite Gautier, a demimondaine or courtesan suffering from consumption, and Armand Duval, a young bourgeois. Written by Alexandre Dumas fils (1824–1895) when he was 23 years old, and first published in 1848, La Dame aux Camélias is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's brief love affair with a courtesan, Marie Duplessis. The title character is Marguerite Gautier, who is based on Marie Duplessis, the real-life lover of the author. In some of the English-speaking world, La Dame aux Camélias became known as Camille, and sixteen versions have been performed at Broadway theatres alone. Shortly thereafter, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi set about putting the story to music in the 1853 opera La traviata, with female protagonist Marguerite Gautier renamed Violetta Valéry. First published in 1848 and subsequently adapted by Dumas for the stage, the play premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France, on February 2, 1852. The Lady of the Camellias, sometimes called in English Camille) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. Alphonse Mucha's poster for a performance of the theatrical version, with Sarah Bernhardt (1896)

Dama Kameliowa by Alexandre Dumas fils