Throughout its short lifespan, The Yellow Book contained many other French influences, most notably the inclusion of works evoking Parisian Bohemian culture, such as Henry Harland’s short story “The Bohemian Girl” in volume IV and Charles Conder’s painting “Souvenir de Paris” in volume VI. Harland’s short story revolves around the life of Nina, a girl brought up in the socially radical neighbourhoods of bohemian Paris. After the death of her famous bohemian father, she manages to run a salon, raise her daughter alone, and become a matriarch-like figure in a male-dominated environment. Conder’s painting features a woman in Paris drinking coffee alone as she looks out of the frame. Using the cultural context of bohemianism, this exhibit will analyze Harland’s “The Bohemian Girl” and Conder’s “Souvenir de Paris” as works that exhibit non-conventional values and relate it to how The Yellow Book can be read as a print community of French-influenced bohemianism.

The French were enthusiastic about liberating art from the sole consumption of the ruling class (Desmarais 73). They believed in creating a democratic art culture that everyone could engage with. Paris provided this culture through its bohemian circles (Gluck 15). All sorts of intellectual figures as well as members of the bourgeois class could visit cafes and cabarets of Montmartre and the Latin Quarter to be exposed to a slew of intellectually stimulating discussions. New art and literature would often be showcased at these discussions (Gluck 15) which transformed art into an accessible entity available to all.