The Girl Who Loved Camellias by Julie Kavanagh

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Marie Duplessis lived for 23 years in the early-1800's (the timeframe of Les Misérables). She grew up abandoned, hungry, exploited, uneducated, amoral. She could do an honest day's work but would do anything for anything in the streets if it paid better. Not exactly a shining heroine from history, her sad story might be a shrill fable for the young and female to adhere to social norms. How wonderful it is, then, that Julie Kavanagh has uncovered so much more about Duplessis than the stark tragedy of a young woman who shouldn't have had a chance but became immortal through art.