Dumas, Alexandre, père

Dumas, Alexandre, père [ Davy de la Pailleterie] (1802–70), French novelist and playwright, of Creole parentage, Dumas being the name of his West Indian grandmother. He is now chiefly remembered for his novels, but his plays were important in the French Romantic movement. His historical drama Henri III et sa cour (1829) was the first triumph of the Romantic theatre, delighting an audience starved for years of colour and movement. A play on Napoleon was followed by Antony (1831), seen at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, where several of Dumas's more melodramatic pieces were first produced, including the famous La Tour de Nesle (1832), which for terror and rapidity of action, not to mention the number of corpses, surpassed anything seen on the French stage since the days of Alexandre Hardy. Later Kean; ou, Désordre et génie (1836), with Frédérick in the title-role, had a tremendous success (as did an adaptation of it by Sartre in 1953). Dumas then proceeded, alone or in collaboration, to dramatize his own historical novels, with varying success. Some were produced at the Théâtre Historique, which he built and financed and which nearly ruined him when it failed in 1850. (In spite of his enormous earnings, Dumas was extravagant and an easy prey to harpies.) He was eventually rescued from his creditors by his daughter, who, with the help of her brother Alexandre (below), took over the management of her father's affairs in 1868 and remained with him until his death.