"Alexandre Dumas"(July 24 1802-December 5 1870)

Born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie,also known for his historical novels

as Alexandre Dumas,pere,was French writer best known for his historical novels of high adventure.Translated into nearly 100 languages,these have made him one of the most widely read French authors in history.Many of his novels including The Count of Monte Cristo,The Three Musketeers,Twenty Years After,and The Vicomte de Bragelonne:Ten Years Later were originally published as serials.His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century for nearly 200 films.Alexandre last novel,The Knight of Sainte-Hermine,unfinished at his death,was completed by a scholar and published in 2005,becoming a bestseller.It was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier.Prolific in several genres,he began his career by writing plays,which were successfully produced from the first.He also wrote numerous magazines articles and travel books;his published works total 100,000 pages.In the 1840s, Alexandre founded the Theatre Historique in Paris.His father, general Thomas-Alandre Davy de la Pailleterie,was in SainDomingue from French nobleman and a black slave woman.His aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis Phillippe,Duke of Orleans.With the election of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte in 1851,Alexandre fell from favor,and left France for Belgium,where he stayed for several years.Upon leaving Belgium,he moved to Russia for a few years,before going to Italy.In 1861 he founded and published the newspaper L' Independente,which supported the Italian unification effort.In 1864 he returned to Paris.Married,Alexandre,also had numerous affairs,said to total 40.He was known to have at least four illegitimate or "natural children,including a boy name Alexandre Dumas after him.This son became a successful novelist and playwright,and was known as Alexandre Dumas, fils,(son),while the elder Dumas became conventionally  known in French Alexandre Dumas,pere (father).Among his affairs,in 1866 he had one with Adah Isaacs Menken,an American actress then at the height of her career and less than half his age.Twentieth-century scholars have found that Alexandre fathered another three natural children.The English playwright Watts Philips,who knew Alexandre in his later life,described him as,"the most generous,large-hearted being in the world.He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth.His tongue was like a windmill once set in motion,you never knew when he could stop,especially if the theme was himself.Alexandre was born in Villers-Cotterets in the department of Aisne,in Picardy,France.He had an older sister,Marie-Alexandrine (born, before 1798).Their parents were Marie-Louise Elisbeth Labouret,the daughter and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.Thomas had been born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti),the mixed-race son of the marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie,a French nobleman and general commissaire in the artillery of the colony,and Marie-Cessettee Dumas,a slave who was of Afro-Caribbean ancestry.It is not known whether she was born in Sain-Domingue or in Africa (The fact that she had a French surname probably means that she was Creole),nor is it known from which African people her ancestors came.Brought back to France by his, father, Thomas Alexandre was educated in a military school joined the army as a young man.Thomas-Alexandre used his mother's name,Dumas,after a break with his father.Thomas-Alexandre was promoted to general by the age 31,the first of Afro-Antilles orgin to reach that rank in the French army.He served with distinction in the French Revolutionary Wars.A general under Napoleon in the Italian and Egyptian campaigns,Thomas-Alexandre had fallen out of favor by 1800 and requested leave to return to France.On his return,his ship had to put in at Taranto,in the Kingdom of Naples,where he and others were held as prisoners of war.During his two-year imprisonment,his health was ruined.At the time of Alexandre's birth,his father was impoverished.The father died of cancer in 1806 when Alexandre was four.His mother widowed could not provide her son with much of an education,but he read everything he could.His mother's stories of his father's bravery during the campaigns of the Revolutionary Wars inspired the boy's imagination.Although poor,the family had their father's distinguished reputation and aristocratic rank.In 1822,after the restoration of the monarchy,the 20-year old Alexandre moved to Paris.He acquired a position at the Palais Royal in the office of Louis-Philippe,Duke of Orleans.While working for Louis-Philippe,Alexandre began writing for magazines and plays for the theatre.As an adult,he used his slave grandmother's surname of Dumas,as his father had as an adult.His first play,Henry III and His Courts,produced in 1829 when he was 27,met with acclaim.The next year his second play Christine was equally popular.These successes gave him sufficient income to write full-time.In 1830 he participated in the Revolution that ousted Charles X and replaced him on the throne with the Duke of Orleans.Alexandre's former employer,he ruled as Louis-Philippe,the Citizen King.Until the mid-1830s,life in France remained unsettled,with sporadic riots by disgruntled Republicans and impoverished urban workers seeking change.As life slowly returned to normal,the nation began to industrialize.An improving economy-combined with the end of press censorship made the times rewarding for Alexandre Dumas' literary skills.After writing additional successful plays,Alexandre attracted to an extravagant lifestyle and always spending more than he earned,Alexandre proved to be an astute marketer.As newspapers were publishing many serial novels,in 1838, he rewrote one of his plays as his first serial novel, Le Capitaine Paul.He founded a production studio,staffed with writers who turned out hundreds of stories,all all subject to his personal direction,editing and additions.From 1839 to 1841,Alexandre,with the assistance of several friends,complied Celbrated Crimes,an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history.He featured Beatrice Cenci,Martin Guerre,Cesare,and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as more recent events, and criminals, including the cases, of the alleged murders Kari Ludwig Sand and Antoine Francois Desrues, who were executed.Alexandre collaborated with Augustin Grisier,his fencing master,in his 1840,novel,The Fencing Mater.The story is written as Augustin account of how he came to witness the events of the Decembrists revolt in Russia. The novel was eventually banned in Russia by Czar Nicholas I, and Alexandre prohibited from visting the country after Czar's death. Alexandre refers to Augustin with great respect in The Count of Monte Cristo, The Corsican Brothers,and in his memoirs.Alexandre depended on numerous assistants and collaborars,of whom Augustine Maquet was the best known.It was not until the late twentieth century that his role was fully understood.Auguste is known to have outlined the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo,and made substantial contributions to The Three Musketeers and its sequels,as to several of Alexandre' other novels.Their method of working together was for Auguste to propose plots  and write drafts.Alexandre added the details,diagues, and final chapters.Auguste took Alexandre to court to try to get authorial recognition and a higher rate of payment for his work.He was successful in getting more money,but not a byline.Alexandre novels were so popular they were soon translated into English and other languages.His writing earned him a great deal of money, but he was frequently insolvent,as he spent lavishly on women and sumptuous living.(He has been found to have a total of 40 mistresses.)In 1846 he had built a country house outside Paris at Le Port-Marly,the large Chateau de Monte-Cristo,with an additional building for his writing studio. It was often filled with strangers and acquaintances who stayed for lengthy visits and took advantages of his generosity.Two years later,faced with financial difficulties,he sold the entire property.Alexandre wrote in a wide variety of genres and published a total of 100,000 pages I his lifetime.He made use of experience,writing travel books after taking journeys, including those motivated by reasons other than pleasures.After King Louis-Philippe was ousted in a revolt,Louis-Napoleon Bonapartle was was elected as president.As Napoleon disapproved of the author,in 1851,Alexandre fled to Brussels, Belgium, which was also an effort to escape his creditors.He moved on to Russia about 1859,where French was the second language of the elite, and his writings were enormously popular.Alexandre spent two years in Russia, before leaving to seek different adventure.He published travel books about Russia.In March 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed,with Victor Emmanuel II as its king.Alexandre traveled there and,for the next three years,participated in the movement for Italian unification.He founded and led a newspaper,Independente.Returning to Paris in 1864, he published travel books about Russia.In March 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed,with Victor Emmanuel II as its king.Alexandre traveled there and, for the next three years,participated in the movement he founded and led a newspaper,indipendente.Returning to Paris in 1864,he published travel books about Italy.Despite his aristoratic background and personal success the writer had to deal with discrimination releated to his mixed-race ancestry.In 1843 he wrote a short novel,Georgethat addressed some of the issues of race and affects of colonialism.His response to a man who insulted him about his African ancestry has become famous.Alexandre said:My father was a was mulatto,my grandfather,was a negro,and my great-grandfather a monkey.You see,sir,my family starts where yours ends.On February 1 1840,he married the actress Ida Ferrier(born Marguerite-Josephine Ferrand) (1811-1859).He was known to had numerous liaisons with other women,and was known to have fathered a least four illegitimate children:
Alexandre Dumas fils,son of Marie-Laure Cathrine Labay (1794-1868),a dressmaker.He became a successful novelist and playwright.
Marie-Alexandrine Dumas (March 5 1831-1878),the daughter of Belle Krelsamer (1803-1875).Marie later married Pierre Petel.
Micaella-Clelie-Josepha-Elisabeth Corder(born 1860),the daughter of Emelie Cordier.
Henry Bauer,the son of a woman whose surname was Bauer.About 1866,Alexandre had an affair with Adah Isaacs Menken,a well-known American actress.She had peformed her sensational role in Mazeppa in London.In Paris she had a sold-out run of Les Pirates de la Savanne and was at the peak of her success.These women were among the total of his nearly 40 mistresses found by the scholar Claude Schopp,in addition to three illegitimate children.He has been researching Alexandre for decades,primarily his writings.After his death,Alexandre was originally buried in his birthplace of Villers Cotterets in the department of Aisne.His death was overshadowowed by the Franco-Prussian War and later,changing fashions decreased his popularity.