DUMAS, dii-ma, Alexandre, THE Etna& French dramatist and novelist: b. Villers-Cot terets, •24 July 1803; d. Puits, near Dieppe, 5 Dec. 1870. He was the son of a Republican gen eral who bore the same name, and grandson of Marquis de la Pailletrie and a' negress, Tiennette Dumas. He went to Paris at the age of 20 to push his fortune and was employed by the Duke of Orleans as a clerk at 1,200 francs a year. He now devoted his leisure hours to completing his education, and his ambition prompted him to shine in the field of literature. Some of his lighter dramatic works' were rejected by the theatrical directors, some were accepted and had more or less success, bringing but little fame or profit to their author. At last, in 1829, his drama of 'Henri III' appeared on the stage of the Comedic Frangaise. It was produced when the battle between the Romanticists and the Classicists was at its height and hailed as a triumph by the former school. The piece be came popular and brought the lucky dramatist the sum of 30,000 francs and the post of assist ant librarian to the Duke of Orleans. In the following year appeared his 'Christine) and in quick succession (Antony' ; 'Richard d'Arling ton) ; 'Teresa); (Le Tour de Nesle) ; 'Catha rine Howard); 'Mlle. de Itelle-Isle,' etc. Du mas had now become a noted Parisian charac ter. The critics fought over the merits of his pieces and the scandalmongers over his prodi gality and galanteries. Turning his attention to romance and desirous of becoming the Walter Scott of his country he produced a series of historical romances, among which are deux Dianes,) (La Reine Margot,' 'Les trois mousquetaires) which, with its continuations, occupies eight volumes. The (Comte de Monte Cristo' and (Memoires d'un medicin) are also well known, through translations, to English and American readers. Several historical works also bear his name: 'Louis XIV et son siecle,> 'Le Regent et Louis XV,) 'Le drame de '93,' 'Florence et les Medicis,) etc. In 1840 he mar ried Ida Ferrier, an actress, but the marriage appears to have severed the friendly relations that had long subsisted between them. In 1846 he accompanied the Duke of Montpensier to Spain as the historiographer of his marriage ; and on his return to Paris he opened a theatre for the purpose of producing only his own pieces and built a fantastic and costly country-seat, which was known as the Château de Monte Cristo and on which he expended 450,000 francs.
It is difficult to come to a satisfactory conclu sion as to the merits of this author. Some of his productions are little else than mere trans lations from English and German sources. His first drama, 'Henri III,' is but a skilful piece of patchwork, Walter Scott and Schiller fur nishing him with the bulk of the material. Equally fatal to his reputation is our knowledge of the fact, gained from a lawsuit he had with the Presse and the Constitutionnel newspapers and from a work by Mirecourt entitled (Fabrique de Romans, Maison A. Dumas et Cie.> (Dumas & Company's Romance Factory), that he had arranged to supply those journals during the year with more novels than the most expert scribe could copy in the time, and that he had in his pay numerous hacks who did the serious part of the work. "His brain worked faster than his hand or any human hand could obey its orders: the mine of his inventive faculty needed a commercial company and an army of diggers for its exploitation"; and he constituted himself °the managing director of the company.>> The productivity of himself and his hacks extended • to 1,200 volumes. Inaccurate in his history and superficial as his character drawing is, of the genius of Dumas there can be no reasonable doubt; he had great fertility of in vention, much humor and gaiety and genuine dramatic power, as the works that were un doubtedly from his pen sufficiently testify; and it was not till he had secured a front rank in literature by his own exertions that he de scended to the unworthy plan of employing as sistants to manufacture novels to order. (See COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, THE; THREE MUS KETEERS, THE). Consult Blaze de Bury, 'Alex andre Dumas, sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre' (1885) ; Davidson, 'Alexandre Dumas pere: his Life and Works, with Bibliography' (New York 1902) ; Maurel, Trois Dumas' (Paris 1896) ; Parigot, Drame d'Alexandre Dumas' (Paris 1898) ; and 'Alexandre Dumas Ore' (Paris 1902) ; Spure, 'Life and Writings of Alexandre Dumas' (1902) • Wells, (A Century of French Fiction> (London 1898).