The French poet, dramatist, and fiction writer Louis Charles Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), a major romantic poet, is remembered for his Iyric poems, elegant comedies, and the powerful drama "Lorenzaccio," perhaps the finest French play of the 19th century.

Alfred de Musset was born in Paris on Dec. 11, 1810. He was a brilliant student at the Lycée Henri IV and early frequented the important romantic circles. In 1828 he published his first book, L'Anglais mangeur d'opium, an adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. His first volume of verse, Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie, appeared in 1830. The same year his one-act comedy La Nuit vénitienne failed on the stage, and he decided to write no more for the theater.

In June 1833 Musset met the French writer George Sand. Their ensuing love affair, passionate and somber, was one of the most famous of the...