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ALEXANDRE DUMAS

Alexandre Dumas was a French novelist and dramatist. He was born in 1803 at born at Villers-Cotterets and died in 1870. He was the son of a republican general, and grandson of Marquis de la Pailleterie and a negress, Tiennette Dumas. In 1823 he went to Paris, and obtained an assistant-secretaryship from the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe. He soon began to write for the stage, and in 1829 scored his first success with his drama Henry III. It was produced when the battle between the Romanticists and the Classicists was at its height, and hailed as a triumph by the former school. The same year appeared his Christine, and in quick succession Antony, Richard d'Arlington, Teresa, Le Tour de Nesle, Catharine Howard, Mile. de Belle-Isle, etc. Dumas had now become a noted Parisian character.

The critics fought over the merits of his pieces, and the scandalmongers over his prodigality and galanteries. Turning his attention to romance, he produced a series of historical romances, among which may be mentioned, Les Deux Dianes;
La Reine Margot; Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers), with its continuations Vingt Ans Apres, and Vicomte de Bragelonne. His Monte-Cristo (Count of Monte-Cristo) and several others are also well known to English readers through translations. Several historical works were also written by him: Louis XIV et son Siecle; Le Regent et Louis XV; Le Drame de '93; Florence et les Medicis, etc. The works which bear his name amount to some 1200 volumes, including about 60 dramas; but the only claim he could lay to a great number of the productions issued under his name, was that he either sketched the plot or revised them before going to press. He earned vast sums of money, but his recklessness and extravagance latterly reduced him to the adoption of a shifty, scheming mode of living. His Memoires, begun in 1852, present interesting sketches of literary life during the restoration, but display intense egotism. In 1860 he accompanied Garibaldi in the expedition which freed Naples from the Bourbons.
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