Alexandre Dumas : Genius of Life. This item is unavailable.Alexandre Dumas : Genius of Life

Traces the life and career of the French novelist, discusses his success as a playwright, and assesses his place in literature

The life of Alexandre Dumas ( pere ) was high melodrama, a whirl of grandiose schemes, mistresses, political adventurism, repeated flights from Paris. He set himself the goal of becoming famous by age 30, but after achieving fame as a playwright, celebrity suffocated him. Even love affairs became a dull repetition, though he repeated them far and wide, driving one mistress to attempt suicide. He consciously wrote in the romantic style because it made him millions, enabling him to support his various households. The spoiled son of a mulatto general under Napoleon, republican poet Dumas took to the streets in the anti-Bourbon revolution of 1830. He spent a week in jail in 1836 for refusing to serve in the National Guard; the 1848 revolution made him a born-again politician. Com bining elements of tragedy and farce, this captivating biography by a French scholar-diplomat brims with all the brio, gran deur and slapdash energy of The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers , serialized novels Dumas later took to the stage.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Several biographies of Dumas pere (1802-1870) have been written, one dating from 1884, and Dumas himself contributed Mes Memoires . Standing on the shoulders of earlier biographers, Schopp presents a panoramic view of Dumas's life: the impatience and arrogance of youth; the turbulent love intrigues; quarrels, duels, and litigations; involvement with Garibaldi; travels to Spain and Russia; the purchase of palatial estates; and fortunes made and lost. We follow the success of his plays and the gargantuan production of published works (many largely written by invisible collaborators). Letters, magazine excerpts, detailed invoicesall are effectively woven into the narrative to produce a biography that reads like a Dumas best seller. Danielle Mihram, New York Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.