Editing Alexandre Dumas (section)

==Career==
[[File:Alexandre Dumas par Achille Devéria (1829).png|thumb|upright|''Alexandre Dumas'' by [[Achille Devéria]] (1829)]]
While working for Louis-Philippe, Alexandre Dumas began writing articles for magazines and plays for the theatre. As an adult, he used the surname of Dumas, as his father had done as an adult.<ref name="Webster"/> His first play, ''[[Henry III and His Court]]'', produced in 1829 when he was 27 years old, met with acclaim. His second play, ''Christine'', was equally popular the next year. These successes gave him sufficient income to write full-time.

In 1830, Dumas participated in the [[July Revolution|Revolution]] that ousted [[Charles X of France|Charles X]] and replaced him with Dumas's former employer, the [[Duke of Orléans]], who ruled as [[Louis-Philippe of France|Louis-Philippe]], the Citizen King. Until the mid-1830s, life in France remained unsettled, with sporadic riots by disgruntled Republicans and impoverished urban workers seeking change. As life slowly returned to normal, the nation began to industrialize. An improving economy combined with the end of press censorship made the times rewarding for Alexandre Dumas's literary skills.

After writing additional successful plays, Dumas switched to writing novels. Although attracted to an extravagant lifestyle and always spending more than he earned, Dumas proved to be an astute marketing strategist and writer. As newspapers were publishing many serial novels, he began producing these. His first serial novel was ''[[La Comtesse de Salisbury]]''; ''Édouard III'' (July-September 1836). In 1838, Dumas rewrote one of his plays as a successful serial historical novel, ''Le Capitaine Paul'' ('Captain Paul'), partly based on the life of the Scottish-American naval officer [[John Paul Jones]]. 

He founded a production studio, staffed with writers who turned out hundreds of stories, all subject to his personal direction, editing, and additions. From 1839 to 1841, Dumas, with the assistance of several friends, compiled ''Celebrated Crimes'', an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history. He featured [[Beatrice Cenci]], [[Martin Guerre]], [[Cesare Borgia|Cesare]] and [[Lucrezia Borgia]], as well as more recent events and criminals, including the cases of the alleged murderers [[Karl Ludwig Sand]] and [[Antoine François Desrues]], who were executed. Dumas collaborated with Augustin Grisier, his [[fencing]] master, in his 1840 novel, ''[[The Fencing Master (Dumas novel)|The Fencing Master]]''. The story is written as Grisier's account of how he came to witness the events of the [[Decembrist revolt]] in Russia. The novel was eventually banned in Russia by Czar [[Nicholas I of Russia|Nicholas I]], and Dumas was prohibited from visiting the country until after the Czar's death. Dumas refers to Grisier with great respect in ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'', ''[[The Corsican Brothers]]'', and in his memoirs.

Dumas depended on numerous assistants and collaborators, of whom [[Auguste Maquet]] was the best known. It was not until the late twentieth century that his role was fully understood.<ref name="Samuel">{{cite news | last= Samuel| first= Henry | url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7198679/Alexandre-Dumas-novels-penned-by-fourth-musketeer-ghost-writer.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7198679/Alexandre-Dumas-novels-penned-by-fourth-musketeer-ghost-writer.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title= Alexandre Dumas novels penned by 'fourth musketeer' ghostwriter | newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |date= 10 February 2010 | access-date= 11 August 2012}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Dumas wrote the short novel ''[[Georges (novel)|Georges]]'' (1843), which uses ideas and plots later repeated in ''The Count of Monte Cristo''. Maquet took Dumas to court to get authorial recognition and a higher payment rate for his work. He was successful in getting more money, but not a by-line.<ref name="Samuel"/><ref>See [[Andrew Lang]]'s essay "Alexandre Dumas" in his ''Essays in Little'' (1891), for a full description of these collaborations.</ref>

[[File:Maison Dumas Château de Monte-Cristo 01.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Château de Monte-Cristo]]]]
Dumas's novels were so popular that they were soon translated into English and other languages. His writing earned him a great deal of money, but he was frequently insolvent, as he spent lavishly on women and sumptuous living. (Scholars have found that he had a total of 40 mistresses.<ref name="Crace"/>) In 1846, he had built a country house outside Paris at [[Le Port-Marly]], the large [[Château de Monte-Cristo]], with an additional building for his writing studio. It often was filled with strangers and acquaintances who stayed for lengthy visits and took advantage of his generosity. Two years later, faced with financial difficulties, he sold the entire property.

Dumas wrote in a wide variety of genres and published a total of 100,000 pages in his lifetime.<ref name="Hamel"/> He made use of his experience, writing travel books after taking journeys, including those motivated by reasons other than pleasure. Dumas travelled to Spain, Italy, Germany, England and [[French Algeria]]. After King Louis-Philippe was ousted in a revolt, [[Napoleon III of France|Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte]] was elected president. As Bonaparte disapproved of the author, Dumas fled in 1851 to Brussels, Belgium, which was also an effort to escape his creditors. In about 1859, he moved to [[Russian Empire|Russia]], where French was the second language of the elite and his writings were enormously popular. Dumas spent two years in Russia and visited St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Astrakhan, Baku, and Tbilisi. He published travel books about Russia.

In March 1861, the [[kingdom of Italy]] was proclaimed, with [[Victor Emmanuel II of Italy|Victor Emmanuel II]] as its king. Dumas travelled there and for the next three years participated in the movement for [[Italian unification]]. He founded and led a newspaper, ''Indipendente''. While there, he befriended [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]], whom he had long admired and with whom he shared a commitment to liberal [[Republicanism|republican]] principles as well as membership within [[Freemasonry]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martone |first1=Eric |title=Italian Americans: The History and Culture of a People |date=2016 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |page=22}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Doumergue |first1=Christian |title=Franc-Maçonnerie & histoire de France |date=2016 |publisher=Ed. de l'Opportun |location=Paris |page=213}}</ref> Returning to Paris in 1864, he published travel books about Italy.

Despite Dumas's aristocratic background and personal success, he had to deal with discrimination related to his mixed-race ancestry. In 1843, he wrote the short novel ''[[Georges (novel)|Georges]]'', which addressed some of the issues of race and the effects of colonialism. His response to a man who insulted him about his partial African ancestry has become famous. Dumas said:

{{quote|My father was a [[mulatto]], my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends.<ref name="BietBrighelli1986">{{cite book|author1=Christian Biet|author2=Jean-Paul Brighelli|author3=Jean-Luc Rispail|title=Alexandre Dumas, ou les Aventures d'un romancier|series=Collection "[[Découvertes Gallimard]]"|volume=12|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ahtoQgAACAAJ|year=1986|publisher=Éditions Gallimard|language=fr|isbn=978-2-07-053021-2|page=75|quote=Mon père était un mulâtre, mon grand-père était un nègre et mon arrière grand-père un singe. Vous voyez, Monsieur: ma famille commence où la vôtre finit.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://pages.infinit.net/minos1er/negritude.htm |title=Dumas et la négritude |access-date=10 September 2008 |language=fr |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906154324/http://pages.infinit.net/minos1er/negritude.htm |archive-date=6 September 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}