Musset, (Louis Charles) Alfred de 1810-57
French poet and dramatist

Born in Paris, he found, after tentative study of law and medicine, that he had a talent for writing and at 18 published a translation of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater (L'Anglais mangeur d'opium, 1828). His first collection of poems, Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie (1830, 'Tales of Spain and Italy'), won the approval of Victor Hugo. His first play, La Nuit v�nitienne ('A Night in Venice'), failed at the Od�on in 1830, and from then on he conceived an 'armchair theatre' with plays intended for reading only. When Un Caprice, published in 1837, and several of his other 'armchair' plays were staged successfully more than 10 years later, he wrote On ne saurait penser � tout (1849, 'You Can Never Think of Everything'), Carmosine (1850, Eng trans 1865) and Bettine (1851) for actual performance. In 1833 Musset had met George Sand, and there began the stormy love affair (1833-35), which is traced in his four volumes of Nuits (1835-37). Other works include the autobiographical poem Confessions d'un enfant du si�cle (1835, Eng trans The Confessions of a Child of the Century, 1892) and L'Espoir en Dieu (1838, 'Hoping in God').

Bibliography: Margaret Rees, Alfred de Musset (1971)