Author: Alexandre Dumas
ALEXANDRE DUMAS was born at Villers-Cotterets in 1802, the son of an innkeeper's daughter and of one of Napoleon's generals. He moved to Paris in 1823 to make his fortune in the theatre. By the time he was 28, he was one of the leading literary figures of his day and known for his many mistresses and taste for high living. He threw himself recklessly into the July Revolution of 1830' which he regarded as a great adventure. Quickly wearying of politics, he returned to the theatre and by the early 1840s was producing vast historical novels at a stupendous rate and in prodigious quantities for the cheap newspapers which paid enormous sums of money to authors who could please the public. His complete works were eventually to fill over 300 volumes and his yarns made him the best known Frenchman of his age. He earned several fortunes which he gave away, or spent on women and travel, or wasted on grandiose follies like the 'Chateau de Monte Cristo' which he built to symbolize his success. In 1848 he stood unsuccessfully in the elections for the new Assembly. By 1850, his creditors began to catch up with him and, partly to escape them and partly to find new material for his novels, plays, and travel books, he lived abroad for long periods, travelling through Russia where his fame had preceded him, and Italy where he ran guns in support of Garibaldi's libertarian cause. He died of a stroke at Puys, near Dieppe, in 1870.
