Alfred de Musset entered the lycée Henri-IV at the age of nine, where in 1827 he won the Latin essay prize in the Concours général. With the help of Paul Foucher, Victor Hugo’s brother-in-law, he began to attend, at the age of 17, the Cénacle, the literary salon of Charles Nodier at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. After attempts at careers in medicine (which he gave up owing to a distaste for dissections), law, drawing, English and piano, he became one of the first Romantic writers, with his first collection of poems, Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie (1829, Tales of Spain and Italy). By the time he reached the age of 20, his rising literary fame was already accompanied by a sulphurous reputation fed by his dandy side.

On 24 April 1845 Musset received the Légion d’honneur at the same time as Balzac, and was elected to the Académie française in 1852 after two failed attempts in 1848 and 1850.

Musset was dismissed from his post as librarian by the new minister Ledru-Rollin after the revolution of 1848. He was, however, appointed librarian of the Ministry of Public Instruction in 1853.

Alfred de Musset died in his sleep in Paris in 1857. The cause was heart failure, the combination of alcoholism and a longstanding aortic insufficiency. One symptom that had been noticed by his brother was a bobbing of the head as a result of the amplification of the pulse; this was later called de Musset’s sign. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Henri Gervex’s 1878 painting Rolla was based on a poem by De Musset. It was rejected by the jury of the Salon de Paris for immorality, since it features suggestive metaphors in a scene from the poem, with a naked prostitute after having sex with her client, but the controversy helped Gervex’s career.

Georges Bizet’s opera Djamileh (1871, with a libretto by Louis Gallet) is based on Musset’s story Namouna. The play La Coupe et les lèvres was the basis of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Edgar (1889). Dame Ethel Smyth composed an opera based on Fantasio that premiered in Weimar in 1898. The opera Andrea del Sarto (1968) by French composer Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur (1908–2002) was based on Musset’s play André del Sarto. Lorenzaccio, which takes place in Medici’s Florence, was set to music by the musician Sylvano Bussotti in 1972.

Shane Briant plays Alfred de Musset in a Masterpiece Theatre production of “Notorious Woman” in 1974.

In 2007, Céline Dion recorded a song called “Lettre de George Sand à Alfred de Musset” for her album D’elles.