Set in mid-19th-century France, the novel tells the love story between Marguerite Gautier, a demimondaine or courtesan and Armand Duval, a young bourgeois. Marguerite is nicknamed "lady of the camellias" because she wears a red camellia when she is unavailable for making love and a white camelia when she is available to her lovers. Armand falls in love with Marguerite and ultimately becomes her lover. He convinces her to leave her life as a courtesan and to live with him in the countryside. This idyllic existence is interrupted by Armand's father, who, concerned with the scandal created by the illicit relationship, and fearful that it will destroy Armand's sister's chances of marriage, convinces Marguerite to leave. La Dame aux Camélias is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's brief love affair with a courtesan, Marie Duplessis.

Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895) was a French author and playwright, best known for the romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias), which was adapted into Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata. The great success of the novel and the play launched his career as a dramatist. He was not only more renowned than his father (also well-know French author) during his lifetime, but also dominated the serious French stage for most of the second half of the 19th century. Dumas fils was admitted to the Académie française and awarded the Légion d'honneur.