Editing Alexandre Dumas fils (section)

==Biography==
{{original research section|date=February 2025}}
[[File:ADumas hijo 00.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Alexandre Dumas {{lang|fr|fils}}, in his youth]]
[[File:Alexandre Dumas Fils.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of Alexander Dumas {{lang|fr|fils}}, by the sculptor [[Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]], [[Orsay Museum]]]]
[[File:Tomb of Alexandre Dumas, fils.jpg|thumb|upright|Tomb, [[Montmartre Cemetery]], Paris]]
Dumas was born in Paris, France, the [[illegitimate]] child of {{ill|Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay|ru|Лабе, Катрина}} (1794–1868), a [[dressmaker]], and novelist [[Alexandre Dumas]]. In 1831 his father legally recognized him and ensured that the young Dumas received the best education possible at the ''[[Lycée Condorcet|Collège Bourbon]]''. At that time, the law allowed the elder Dumas to take the child away from his mother. Her agony inspired the younger Dumas to write about tragic female characters. In almost all of his writings, he emphasized the moral purpose of literature; in his play {{ill|The Illegitimate Son|qid=Q110866398|s=1|v=sup|italic=y}} (1858) he espoused the belief that if a man fathers an illegitimate child, then he has an obligation to legitimize the child and marry the woman (see [[Illegitimacy in fiction]]). At boarding schools, he was constantly taunted by his classmates because of his family situation. These issues profoundly influenced his thoughts, behaviour, and writing.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

Dumas' paternal great-grandparents were Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a [[Saint Dominicans|Saint Dominican]] nobleman and ''Général commissaire'' in the Artillery in the colony of [[Saint-Domingue]]—now [[Haiti]]—and [[Marie-Cessette Dumas]], an African woman  enslaved by the Marquis. Their son [[Thomas-Alexandre Dumas]] became a high-ranking [[general]] of [[Revolutionary France]].<ref>{{cite book|title=[[The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo]]|last=Reiss|first=Tom|publisher=Crown Publishers|year=2012|isbn=978-0-307-38246-7|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackcountgloryr0000reis/page/190 190–204]}}</ref>

In 1844, Dumas moved to [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]], near Paris, to live with his father. There he met [[Marie Duplessis]], a young [[courtesan]] who would be the inspiration for the character Marguerite Gauthier in his romantic novel ''[[La Dame aux camélias]]'' (''The Lady of the Camellias''). Adapted into a play, it was titled ''Camille'' in English and became the basis for [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi's]] 1853 opera, ''[[La traviata]]'', Duplessis undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valéry.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

Although he admitted that he had done the adaptation because he needed the money, he had great success with the play, which started his career as a dramatist. He was not only more renowned than his father during his lifetime, but also dominated the serious French stage for most of the second half of the 19th century. After this, he virtually abandoned writing novels, though his semi-autobiographical ''Affaire Clémenceau'' (1866) achieved some solid success.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

On 31 December 1864, in Moscow, Dumas married {{ill|Нарышкина, Надежда Ивановна|lt=Nadezhda von Knorring|ru}} (1826–April 1895), daughter of Johan Reinhold von Knorring and widow of Alexander Grigorievich Narishkin. The couple had two daughters: {{ill|Colette Dumas|lt=Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette "Colette" Dumas|fr}} (born 20 November 1860), who married Maurice Lippmann and was the mother of Serge Napoléon Lippmann (1886–1975) and [[Alexandre Lippmann|Auguste Alexandre Lippmann]] (1881–1960); and Jeanine Dumas (3 May 1867–1943), who married Ernest Lecourt d'Hauterive (1864–1957), son of George Lecourt d'Hauterive and his wife, Léontine de Leusse. After Nadezhda's death, Dumas married Henriette Régnier de La Brière (1851–1934) in June 1895, without issue.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

In 1874, he was admitted to the [[Académie française]] and in 1894 he was awarded the ''[[Légion d'honneur]]''.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

Dumas died at [[Marly-le-Roi]], [[Yvelines]], on 27 November 1895, and was interred in the [[Montmartre Cemetery]] in Paris. His grave is some {{convert|100|m}} away from that of [[Marie Duplessis]].{{cn|date=September 2022}}