Essay, Biography or Paragraph on “Alexandre Dumas” great author complete biography for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Alexandre Dumas

(1802 – 1870)

Alexandre Dumas was one of the most famous French writers of the 19th century, best known for historical adventure novels like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. He was among the first, along with Honore de Balzac and Eugene Sue, who fully used the possibilities of Roman Feuilleton, the serial novel. Dumas’ works are fast-paced adventure tales on one hand and on the other are entangled, melodramatic, and actually not faithful to the historical facts. Alexandre Dumas was born in Villes-Cotterets. Dumas’s father was a general in Napoleon’s army, who had fallen out of favour. After his death in 1806 the family lived in poverty.

Dumas worked as a notary’s clerk and went in 1823 to Paris to find work. Due to his elegant handwriting he secured a position with the Due d’Orleans — later King Louis Philippe. He also found his place in theatre and as a publisher of some obscure magazines.

As a playwright Dumas made his breakthrough with Henri III et Sa Cour (1829), produced by the Comedic Francaise. It gained a huge success and Dumas went on to write additional plays, of which La Tour dc Nesle (1832, “The Tower of Nesle”) is considered the greatest masterpiece of French melodrama. Historical novels brought Dumas enormous fortune. He produced some 250 books with his 73 assistants, especially with the history teacher Auguste Maquet, whom he wisely allowed to work quite independently.  Presse and the Constitutionel. Maquet often proposed subjects and wrote first drafts for some of Dumas’ most famous serial novels, including Les Trois Mousquetaires (1844, “The Three Musketeers”) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844-45, “The Count of Monte-Cristo”). The lifting of press censorship in the 1830s gave rise to a rapid spread of newspapers. Dumas’ first true serial novel was Le Capitaine Paul (1838, “Captain Paul”), a quick rewrite of play. In a shorter work, Georges (1843, Georg), Dumas examined the question of race and colonialism. Dumas spent two years in exile in Brussels (1855-57), and then returned to Paris. In 1858 he travelled to Russia and in1860 he went to Italy; where he supported Garibaldi and Italy’s struggle for independence (1860-64). He then remained in Naples as a keeper of the museums for four years. Called as “the king of Paris”, Dumas earned fortunes and spent them right away on friends, art, and mistresses.

Dumas did not generally define himself as a black man, and there is not much evidence that he encountered overt, racism during his life. Dumas died of a stroke on December 5, 1870, at Puys, near Dieppe.