Dumas
Dumas names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Dumas ALEXANDRE, the Elder
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALEXANDRE, the Elder, a celebrated French romancist and dramatist; born in Villers-Cotterets, Aisne, July 24, 1802. He was grandson of a French marquis and a San Domingo negress. In 1823 he went to Paris and obtained an assistant-secretaryship from the Duke of Orleans, afterward Louis Philippe. In 1829 he scored his first success with his drama "Henry The same year appeared his III:" "Christine," and in quick succession ALEXANDRE DUMAS, THE ELDER "Antony," "Richard d'Arlington," "Térésa," "Le Tour de Nesle," "Catharine Howard," etc. Dumas had now become a noted Parisian character. The critics fought over the merits of his pieces, and the scandalmongers over his prodigality and galanteries. Turning his attention to romance, he produced a series of historical romances. A few of the great multitude of his famous romances are: "The Count of Monte Cristo" (1844); "The Three Musketeers" (1844); "Twenty Years After" (1845); "The Knight of Maison-Rouge" (1846); "Viscount de Bragelonne" (1847); "Queen Margot" (1847). Many of his stories were of great length, 6 to 12 volumes. Besides pure fiction he wrote a number of historical romances, as "Joan of Arc" (1842); "Michelangelo and Raffaelle" 1846); "Louis XIV. and His Age" (1847). His plays, which had extraordinary success, include: "Henri III. and His Court" (1829); "Antony” (1831); "Charles VII. with His Grand Vassals" (1831), "Mlle. de Belle- Isle" (1839); "Marriage Under Louis XV." (1841); "The Misses St. Cyr" (1843). Nearly all his novels were put on the stage also. He wrote entertaining narratives of his travels in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, north Africa, Egypt, Syria, etc. The works which bear his name amount to some 1,200 volumes, including about 60 dramas. He died near Dieppe, Dec. 5, 1870.
Dumas ALEXANDRE, the Younger
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALEXANDRE, the Younger, a French dramatist and romancist, son of the preceding; born in Paris, July 27 or 28, 1824. He published his first romance: "Story of Four Women and a Parrot" (6 vols. 1847), which found little favor. Among his romances are: "A Woman's Romance"; "Cesarine"; "Camille" (La Dame aux Camélias); all in 1848. His dramas include: "Diana de Lys" (1853), and "The Demi-Monde" (1855). He also wrote the romance, "The Clémenceau Case" (1864), dramatized under the same name; and the dramatic pieces: "The Natural Son" "The Friend of Women" (1858); (1864); "Claude's Wife" (1873); "The Danicheffs" (1876); "Francillon" (1887); and others. He died in Paris, Nov. 28, 1895.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 treats Dumas the Elder as a prodigious entertainer, noting almost in passing that he was "grandson of a French marquis and a San Domingo negress." That ancestry is now central to how he is read: his father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, born enslaved in Saint-Domingue to Marie-Cessette Dumas and risen to general under the Revolution, is the subject of Tom Reiss's biography The Black Count, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. In 2002, the bicentenary of his birth, Dumas's remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris by President Jacques Chirac, who spoke of the injustice done to him as a man of colour. Scholarship has also given far more credit to his collaborators, above all Auguste Maquet, who plotted much of The Three Musketeers and Monte Cristo, and an unfinished late novel, Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine, was reconstructed by Claude Schopp and published in 2005.
Written for this edition, 2026.