Alexandre Dumas
Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, aka Alexandre Dumas, was a prolific French writer active throughout the middle of the 19th century. His works have been translated into roughly over one hundred languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors of all time, alongside our other favorite Frenchman, Victor Hugo. While his novels were originally published as serials in newspapers, they have been adapted in the 20th century into nearly 200 different films demonstrating how insanely talented this guy was in a multitude of genres. You of course probably know him from his two greatest hits, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, however the depth of Dumas’ writing goes well beyond a handful of novels. In grand total, Alexandre produced over 100,000 pages of published writing throughout his life…and just to assure you, that is a shit ton of pages. He was additionally biracial, having a grandmother of Haitian descent, a typical Frenchman in that he was married with dozens of mistresses, and when he was buried, he was so beloved, Dumas was buried in The Pantheon. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who know Dumas well, 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.” So just who was Mr. Alexandre Dumas, the man behind the writer? Let’s talk about it together this week on Legacy: the Artists Behind the Legends.