For In Bohemia with Du Maurier: The First of a Series of Reminiscences — Context and Discussion, the stored edition analysis reports 21,522 words, 1 hr 34 min estimated reading time, and 4 detected text sections.
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Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Du Maurier, George, 1834-1896,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.
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Felix Moscheles opens In Bohemia with Du Maurier with a poignant note dated October 1896, written shortly after du Maurier's death. The preface explains that the book originated from a conversation about du Maurier's use of Moscheles's 'Mesmerism' in Trilby, which led them to revisit old sketches from their Antwerp days. Moscheles describes his Bohemia as 'a little cultivated corner of the land,' not the wild country often depicted, but a specific milieu centered on artistic camaraderie.
The excerpts reveal how du Maurier's sketches served as a spontaneous form of correspondence. Moscheles reproduces a letter where du Maurier writes in a playful invented German: 'Herr Rag schickt zu Fräulein Moscheles sein empfehlung und ihren bruder.' The English translation clarifies the joke: 'Mr. Rag sends his greeting and her brother to Miss Moscheles.' This linguistic playfulness extends to du Maurier's visual wit—he draws himself looking over Moscheles's shoulder while he writes to his sister, captioning it 'An indiscreet fellow looking over my ——.' Such details illustrate du Maurier's capacity for making something out of nothing, a trait Moscheles compares to Mendelssohn's spontaneous composition of a song.
Moscheles recounts evenings at Miss Clara's, where du Maurier's rendition of Balfe's 'When other lips and other hearts' was warmly received. The friendly intercourse continued, with sketches finding their way into her album. In a separate episode, du Maurier depicts himself and Moscheles as Roman figures attending a concert: 'Claudius Felix et Publius Busso, cum centurione Guidorum, audientes juvenes Conservatorioni, A.D. C...' This classical masquerade, complete with a pun on their names, shows du Maurier's habit of turning everyday events into humorous, historically-styled tableaux. The excerpts do not reveal the outcome of these evenings, but the tone suggests a sustained, affectionate bond.
Du Maurier's letters reveal a self-aware, irreverent voice. He writes to Moscheles: 'Dear Bobtail, I write to you out of sheer idleness, so as to have an excuse not to pack up for the next half-hour.' Another note ends with 'Thy RAG, jusqu' à la mort.' The nickname 'Rag' and the mock-heroic closing underscore a relationship built on shared jokes. Moscheles notes that du Maurier's talent manifested in an 'inexhaustible capacity for making something out of nothing,' as when he transforms a request for painting materials into a sketch of himself elated at resuming work. These glimpses, while fragmentary, suggest a personality that combined artistic drive with a refusal to take himself too seriously.
Moscheles's memoir is best approached as a curated collection of anecdotes and images, not a comprehensive biography. The excerpts offer a narrow window into du Maurier's early style—both visual and epistolary—but the full book likely contains many more such vignettes. Readers interested in the social texture of artistic life in the 1850s will find value in these pages, though the incomplete text leaves many questions about the broader narrative unanswered.
When I finished In Bohemia with Du Maurier, what lingered wasn’t the glamour of youth but its quiet sculpting—how early passions shape a life’s work without ever announcing themselves. That same gentle archaeology of form, the way material becomes meaning, stayed with me afterward in A History of Sculpture — A Closer Reading. Some books simply sit beside you, like an old studio friend, not asking anything, just keeping company.
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