Background

Alexandre Dumas was born on July 27, 1824 in Paris, France. He was the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas. His mother, Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker, cared for him conscientiously, and his father early acknowledged his relationship. In spite of this, however, his childhood was made miserable by the taunts of his schoolmates about his illegitimacy, and in later years he made this experience the subject of several books.

Education

Dumas spent six miserable years in school at the Pension Saint-Victor. His formal education ended at the age of seventeen after two years at the Collège Bourbon, from which he was never graduated.

Career

Dumas began his career as a dramatist with his adaptation in 1852 of his novel La Dame aux camélias, a play which was later produced in English with the title Camille. He denounced the world of dissolute women and unfaithful spouses in Diane de Lys (1853), Le Demi-monde (1855), and L'Ami des femmes (1864) (The Woman's Friend, 1928). He attacked the nouveaux riches in the person of the brutal, ostentatious Giraud of La Question d'argent (1857) (The Money Question, 1915), one of his most popular plays. He defended the rights of illegitimate children in the partly autobiographical Le Fils naturel (1858) and recalled indirectly, in Un Père prodigue, memories of his youth spent in the companionship of his father. He preached equality for women and forgiveness for their past sins in the pedantic Les IdéesIdees de Madame Aubray (1867). In La Princesse Georges (1871) and La Femme de Claude (1873) he criticized marriage laws that bind wives to their unworthy husbands; in the latter he claimed for a husband the moral right to kill his unfaithful wife.

Dumas' plays are notable for their powerful dialectic, their fast-moving action, the high quality of their dialogue, and the dramatic technique that they display, but they are too frequently encumbered by declamatory, moralizing speeches.

Achievements

• Alexandre Dumas fils was a famous playwright and author of classical works. He was best known for the romantic novel The Lady of the Camellias. In 1894 Dumas was awarded Order of the Legion of Honor.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Lady of the Camellias

    (Known to all as "the Lady of the Camellias" because she i...)

    1848
  • Francillon 1887
  • Denise 1885

Views

The unhappy witness of the ruin brought on his father by illicit love affairs, Dumas fils - himself the child of one of these affairs - devoted his plays to sermons on the sanctity of the family and of marriage.

Quotations: "In the interest of the dictionaries of the future let me lay down the principle that the Demi-Monde, contrary to the common belief and in spite of what is printed, does not represent the ruck of courtesans, but the class of women that have lost caste."

"That world begins where the lawful wife finishes; it finishes where the venal wife begins. It is divided from the world of honest women by the public scandal it provokes; it is divided from the world of courtesans by money."

"Business? Why, it's very simple: business is other people's money."

"It is possible to become a painter, a sculptor, or a musician by study, but not a dramatic poet; a man is so either at once or never, as he is blonde or brown, and cannot help it."

"Esteem money neither more nor less than it deserves, it is a good servant and a bad master."

"We must love, no matter whom, no matter what, no matter how, provided only we do love."

"Men and women go to the theatre only to hear of love, and to take part in the pains or in the joys that it has caused. All the other interests of humanity remain at the door."

Membership

Alexandre Dumas fils was a member of the Académie française.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Dorothy Parker: "Although I work, and seldom cease, At Dumas pere and Dumas fils, Alas, I cannot make me care For Dumas fils and Dumas peer."

Interests

• palmistry

Connections

On 31 December 1864 in Moscow, Dumas married Nadezhda von Knorring. The couple had two daughters - Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette Dumas and Jeanine Dumas. After Nadezhda's death, Dumas married Henriette Régnier de La Brière in 1895.

Father:

Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas was a dramatist and novelist

Mother:

Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay

(1794 - 1868)

Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay was a dressmaker.

Spouse:

Henriette Régnier de La Brière

(1851–1934)

Henriette Régnier de La Brière was a spouse of Alexandre Dumas fils.

late spouse:

Nadezhda von Knorring

(1826 - April 1895)

Nadezhda von Knorring was a spouse of Alexandre Dumas fils.

Daughter:

Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette Dumas

(1860 - 1907)

Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette Dumas was the eldest daughter of Alexander Dumas fils.

Daughter:

Jeanine Dumas

(3 May 1867 - 1943)

Jeanine Dumas was the daughter of Alexander Dumas fils.

colleague:

George Sand

References

• The Titans, a Three-generation Biography of the Dumas
  1957