Alexandre Dumas, fils (27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) was a French
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
and dramatist. He was the son (fils) of
Alexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
, also a writer and playwright.
Dumas was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, the illegitimate child of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay (1794-1868), a
dressmakerA dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Also called a mantua-maker or a modiste.-History of dressmaking:...
, and novelist
Alexandre DumasAlexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
. During 1831 his father legally recognized him and ensured that the young Dumas received the best education possible at the Institution Goubaux and the Collège Bourbon.
Alexandre Dumas, fils (27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) was a French
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
and dramatist. He was the son (fils) of
Alexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
, also a writer and playwright.
Biography
Dumas was born in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, the illegitimate child of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay (1794-1868), a
dressmakerA dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Also called a mantua-maker or a modiste.-History of dressmaking:...
, and novelist
Alexandre DumasAlexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
. During 1831 his father legally recognized him and ensured that the young Dumas received the best education possible at the Institution Goubaux and the Collège Bourbon. At that time, the law allowed the elder Dumas to take the child away from his mother.
Her agony inspired Dumas
fils to write about tragic female characters. In almost all of his writings, he emphasized the moral purpose of literature and in his play
The Illegitimate Son (1858) he espoused the belief that if a man fathers an illegitimate child then he has an obligation to legitimize the child and marry the woman.
Dumas' paternal great-grandparents were a French nobleman and a
HaitiHaiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Creole- and French-speaking Caribbean country. Along with the Dominican Republic, it occupies the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago...
an woman. In boarding schools, Dumas
fils was constantly taunted by his classmates. These issues all profoundly influenced his thoughts, behaviour, and writing.
During 1844 Dumas moved to
Saint-Germain-en-LayeSaint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris 19.1 km from the center.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...
to live with his father. There, he met
Marie DuplessisMarie Duplessis was a French courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent and wealthy men. She was the inspiration for Marguerite Gautier, the main character of La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas the younger, one of Duplessis' lovers...
, a young
courtesanA courtesan was originally a woman courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person. In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
who would be the inspiration for his romantic novel
The Lady of the CamelliasThe Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, that was subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to...
. Adapted into a play, it was titled in English (especially in the United States) as
Camille and is the basis for
Verdi'sGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
1853 opera,
La TraviataLa traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on the novel La dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, published in 1848. The title "La traviata" means literally The Woman Who Strayed, or perhaps more figuratively, The...
. Although he admitted that he had done the adaptation because he needed the money, he had a great success with the play. Thus began the career of Dumas
fils as a dramatist, which was not only more renowned than that of his father during his lifetime but also dominated the serious French stage for most of the second half of the 19th century. After this, he virtually abandoned writing novels (though his semi-autobiographical
L'Affaire Clemenceau (1867) achieved some success).
On 31 December 1864, Dumas married Nadjeschda von Knorring (1826 – April 1895), daughter of Johan Reinhold von Knorring and wife, and widow of Alexander, Prince Naryschkine, whom he married at
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
and with whom he had two daughters: Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette Dumas, born 20 November 1860, who married Maurice Lippmann and was the mother of Serge Napoléon Lippmann (1886–1975) and Auguste Alexandre Lippmann (1881–1960); and Jeanine Dumas (3 May 1867–), who married Ernest d' Hauterive (1864–1957), son of George Lecourt d' Hauterive and wife (married in 1861) Léontine de Leusse. After Naryschkine's death, he married in June 1895 Henriette Régnier de La Brière (1851–1934), without issue.
During 1874, he was admitted to the
Académie françaiseL'Académie française, or the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was...
and in 1894 he was awarded the
Légion d'honneurThe Légion d'honneur or Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
Alexandre Dumas
fils died at
Marly-le-RoiMarly-le-Roi is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris . from the centre....
,
YvelinesYvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.-History:Yvelines was created from the western part of the defunct department of Seine-et-Oise on January 1, 1968 in accordance with a law passed on January 10, 1964 and a décret d'application from February 26, 1965.It gained the...
, on November 27, 1895 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. His grave is, perhaps coincidentally, only some 100 metres away from that of Marie Duplessis.
Novels
- The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, that was subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to...
(Camille) (1848)
- L'affaire Clemenceau (The Clemenceau Case) (1867)
Plays
- Atala (1848)
- The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, that was subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. An instant success, Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about to...
(1852)
- Diane de Lys (1853)
- Le Bijou de la reine (1855)
- Le Demi-monde (1855)
- La Question d'argent (1857)
- Le Fils naturel (The Illegitimate Son) (1858)
- Un Père prodigue (1859)
- Un Mariage dans un chapeau (1859) coll. Vivier
- L'Ami des femmes (1864)
- Le Supplice d'une femme (1865) coll. Emile de Girardin
- Heloise Paranquet (1866) coll. Durentin
- Les Idees de Madame Aubray (1867)
- Le Filleul de Pompignac (1869) coll. Francois
- Une Visite de noces (1871)
- La Princesse Georges (1871)
- La Femme de Claude (1873)
- Monsieur Alphonse (1873)
- L'étrangère (1876)
- Les Danicheff (1876) coll. de Corvin
- La Comtesse Romani (1876) coll. Gustave Fould
- La Princesse de Bagdad (1881)
- Denise (1885)
- Francillon (1887)
- La Route de Thebes (unfinished)
External links