RULE BOHEMIA: THE COSMOPOLITICS OF SUBCULTURE IN GEORGE DU MAURIER'STRILBY

Abstract

In 1895, theCriticpublishedan anecdote about two young ladies discussing the popularity of George Du Maurier's novelTrilby(1894):“What is this ‘Trilby’ everybody is talking about?” asked one of these. “Oh,” replied the other, “it's a book – a novel.” “They say it is awfully bad,” said the first young person. “Yes, I've heard so; but it isn't so at all. I read it clear through, and there wasn't anything bad in it. I didn't like it either; there is too much French in it.” “French?” commented the first young woman; “well that's it, then – all the bad part is in French.” “I hadn't thought of that,” mused the other one, “I suppose that's just the way of it.”The dialogue provides an illuminating glimpse into the controversy surrounding the publication ofTrilby, a novel that brazenly celebrates a heroine who possesses “all the virtues but one” – chastity (35; pt. 1). AlthoughTrilbywas successful enough to inspire a spate of songs, literary parodies, and stage adaptations, its depiction of Paris's bohemian underground flouted mainstream Victorian values. TheConnecticut Magazinecharged Du Maurier with inspiring “comparative indifference” to sexual virtue, and readers everywhere worried that young people, like those depicted in the above vignette, would be unable to distinguish virtue from vice after reading the novel (“A Free Lance” 105).