Alexandre Dumas

The novels and plays of Alexandre Dumas are filled with action and clever talk. Some critics, however, have said that Dumas’s work is not good literature because it is sometimes carelessly written and historically inaccurate. After several failures as a playwright, Dumas wrote a play about the king called Henri III. It was produced in Paris in 1829 and was a great success. Dumas became prominent as one of the leaders of the Romantic movement. In the 1840s, Dumas turned nearly all his attention to writing vivid historical novels. The best known are The Three Musketeers, and The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas hired collaborators, added material here and there to their work, and changed the plot and characters, giving the works the charm and movement that made his novels popular. Collaborators’ names never appeared on the title pages of these works, but this omission was a practice of the day. Dumas earned vast sums, but he spent money faster than he earned it. His wish to be elected to the French Academy was never fulfilled.