Alexandre Dumas (fils) 
The Lady of the Camellias 

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. 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.[2] Marguerite is nicknamed 
la dame aux camélias (French for ’the lady of the camellias’) because she wears a red camellia when she’s menstruating and unavailable for making love and a white camelia when she is available to her lovers.[3]