more photos (2)

Alexandre Dumas’s Followers (12,328)

Alexandre Dumas

Born

in Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, France

July 24, 1802

Died

December 05, 1870

Genre

Adventure, Romance, Fiction

Influences

Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Hector Berlioz ...more

edit data

This note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils.

Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France a This note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils.

Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso ...more

Combine Editions
Alexandre Dumas’s books

Average rating: 4.23 · 1,662,046 ratings · 68,139 reviews · 6,994 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Count of Monte Cristo 4.32 avg rating — 1,016,419 ratings — published 1844 — 3548 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Three Musketeers (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #1) 4.10 avg rating — 345,777 ratings — published 1844 — 4668 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Man in the Iron Mask (Le vicomte de Bragelonne, #4) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 66,372 ratings — published 1847 — 467 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Twenty Years After (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #2) by Alexandre Dumas, David Coward (Editor), Auguste Maquet (Co-Author) 4.09 avg rating — 25,695 ratings — published 1845 — 334 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Black Tulip 3.86 avg rating — 23,441 ratings — published 1850 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Le Comte de Monte-Cristo I (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, #1 of 2) by Alexandre Dumas, Gilbert Sigaux (Editor), Jean-Yves Tadié (Préface) 4.53 avg rating — 17,653 ratings — published 1844 — 476 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Robin Hood: The Prince of Thieves 3.97 avg rating — 19,394 ratings — published 1862 — 282 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Le Comte de Monte-Cristo II (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, #2 of 2) by Alexandre Dumas, Gilbert Sigaux (Editor), Jean-Yves Tadié (Préface) 4.62 avg rating — 13,452 ratings — published 1844 — 149 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Queen Margot 4.15 avg rating — 14,554 ratings — published 1845	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Trilogie des Mousquetaires #3.1) by Alexandre Dumas, David Coward (Editor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8,684 ratings — published 1850 — 134 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Alexandre Dumas…

Series by Alexandre Dumas

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1 book)
by

Alexandre Dumas,

Robin Buss (Translator)

4.33 avg rating — 1,054,603 ratings

Trilogie des Mousquetaires (6 books)
by

Alexandre Dumas,

David Coward (Editor)

4.09 avg rating — 391,617 ratings

Les Trois Mousquetaires (4 books)
by

Alexandre Dumas,

محمد طاهر قاجار (Translator)

4.10 avg rating — 347,708 ratings

الفرسان الثلاثة (3 books)
by

Alexandre Dumas

4.10 avg rating — 345,871 ratings

Le vicomte de Bragelonne (4 books)
by

Alexandre Dumas,

Joachim Neugroschel (Translation),

Francine du Plessix Gray (Introduction)

4.02 avg rating — 92,779 ratings

More series by Alexandre Dumas…

Related News

Readers' Most Anticipated Books of Fall

Autumn is the busiest season in the book publishing business, and it’s also the time when big-name authors release their big-time books....

Polls

November 2015 Revisit the Shelf. Reread Poll

1949, 1984 by George Orwell, 328 pages

31 votes, 20.9%

1814, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, 507 pages

22 votes, 14.9%

1962, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, 212 pages

21 votes, 14.2%

1898, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. 120 pages

13 votes, 8.8%

1929, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, 326 pages

12 votes, 8.1%

1869, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 449 pages

11 votes, 7.4%

1844, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, 786 pages

11 votes, 7.4%

1883, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 311 pages

10 votes, 6.8%

1909, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, 360 pages

10 votes, 6.8%

1869, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, 1392 pages

7 votes, 4.7%

148 total votes

1 comment

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Rory Gilmore ...: Favorite Reads of 2008	29	3194	Jan 08, 2009 05:23AM
Fantasy Book Club: Peeve: Publishers chopping Fantasy books down	19	315	Apr 01, 2009 10:37PM
The Book Challenge: Poppy's Book Challenge	28	231	Apr 27, 2009 03:35PM
Between the Lines: July 2009 Nominations for Group Read	35	117	Jun 24, 2009 10:35AM
Goodreads Librari...: Translation and Combining help	188	675	Jul 21, 2009 01:45PM
SciFi and Fantasy...: Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince	21	130	Jul 25, 2009 10:05PM
Happy & Brainy Group: Books You Love to Read Repeatedly	32	235	Jul 29, 2009 06:06AM

More…

Alexandre Dumas’s Followers (12,328)

Alexandre Dumas

Combine EditionsAlexandre Dumas’s books

Series by Alexandre Dumas

Related News

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Alexandre Dumas’s books