Part of Series
Alexandre Dumas, père (French for "father", akin to 'Senior' in English), born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) 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. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were serialized. He also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent. This is volume II of III and was published in 1894. The Two Dianas ( Les Deux Diane, 1846) tells the fictionalized story of Gabriel, Comte de Montgomery, who mortally wounded King Henry II of France. The two Dianas in the title refer to Henry II's favorite, Diana de Poitiers, and her daughter, Diana de Castro. The novel also includes a fictionalization of the Martin Guerre story.* * - Martin Guerre, a French peasant of the 16th century, was at the center of a famous case of imposture. Several years after he had left his family, a man claiming to be Guerre took his name and lived with Guerre's wife and son for three years. The false Martin Guerre was tried, discovered to be a man named Arnaud du Tilh and executed. The case continues to be studied and dramatized to this day.
Author
This note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils. Alexandre Dumas, père (French for "father", akin to Senior in English), 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. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were serialized. Dumas also wrote plays and magazine articles, and was a prolific correspondent. Dumas was of Haitian descent and mixed-race. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, a black slave. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career. Dumas' father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre Dumas acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, finding early success. He became one of the leading authors of the French Romantic Movement, in Paris. Excerpted from Wikipedia.
