Alexandre Dumas (born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie; 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where père is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer. His works have been translated into many languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century into nearly 200 films.

Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris.

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, an African 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's father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, a career which led to early success. Decades later, after the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years, then moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy. In 1861, he founded and published the newspaper L'Indépendent, which supported Italian unification, before returning to Paris in 1864.

Though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs (allegedly as many as 40). He was known to have had at least four illegitimate children, although twentieth-century scholars believe it was seven. He acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père ('father') and Alexandre Dumas fils ('son'). Among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress who was less than half his age and at the height of her career.

The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his later life, described him as "the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth. His tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself." ...

Source: Article "Alexandre Dumas" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Alexandre Dumas (dit aussi Alexandre Dumas père) est un écrivain français né le 24 juillet 1802 à Villers-Cotterêts (Aisne) et mort le 5 décembre 1870 au hameau de Puys, ancienne commune de Neuville-lès-Dieppe, aujourd'hui intégrée à Dieppe (Seine-Maritime).

Il est le fils de Marie-Louise Labouret (1769-1838) et Thomas Alexandre Davy de La Pailleterie (1762-1806) (né à Saint-Domingue, actuelle Haïti) dit le général Dumas, et le père des écrivains Henry Bauër et Alexandre Dumas (1824-1895) dit « Dumas fils », auteur de La Dame aux camélias.

Proche des romantiques et tourné vers le théâtre, Alexandre Dumas écrit d'abord un vaudeville à succès et des drames historiques comme Henri III et sa cour (1829), La Tour de Nesle (1832), Kean (1836). Auteur prolifique, il s'oriente ensuite vers le roman historique tel que la trilogie Les Trois Mousquetaires (1844), Vingt ans après (1845) et Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (1847), ou encore Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844-1846), La Reine Margot (1845) et La Dame de Monsoreau (1846).

La paternité de certaines de ses œuvres lui est contestée. Dumas fut ainsi soupçonné par plusieurs critiques de son époque d'avoir eu recours à des nègres littéraires, notamment Auguste Maquet. Toutefois les recherches contemporaines ont montré que Dumas avait mis en place une coopération avec ce dernier : Dumas s'occupait de choisir le thème général et modifiait les ébauches de Maquet pour les rendre plus dynamiques. On ne peut donc lui nier la paternité de son œuvre, même s'il n'aurait peut-être pas pu réaliser tous ses chefs-d'œuvre des années 1844-1850 sans la présence à ses côtés d'un collaborateur à tout faire efficace et discret.

En septembre 1870, après un accident vasculaire qui le laisse à demi paralysé, Dumas s'installe dans la villa de son fils à Puys, quartier balnéaire de Neuville-lès-Dieppe. Il y meurt le 5 décembre 1870.

Transférée au Panthéon de Paris le 30 novembre 2002, à l'occasion du bicentenaire de sa naissance.

Его дедушкой и бабушкой по отцовской линии были Мари Сессете Дюма (гаитянский раб) и маркиз Антуан Дэви де ла Пайлетери. Антуан не одобрял своего сына Томаса-Александре, присоединившегося к французской армии под именем «Дэви де ла Пайлетери», поэтому Томас-Александр вместо этого использовал фамилию своей матери. Он стал ценным генералом Наполеона, и после того, как он женился на дочери местного владельца таверны, у Томаса-Александра был собственный сын. Этот сын был Александром Дюма, который стал всемирно известным автором «Трех мушкетеров» и «Графом Монте-Кристо».