Alexandre Dumas
Spine number 01
Henry III and His Court
At the court of Henry III, Saint-Mégrin’s love for the Duchess of Guise becomes entangled with a struggle for influence over the king. Political manoeuvres and a jealous husband drive this five-act historical drama, first performed and published in 1829.
1829 · play · Fiction
Spine number 02
Antony
Antony returns to the life of Adèle d’Hervey, now a wife and mother, and revives a love that neither can easily abandon. This contemporary Romantic drama makes birth, reputation and social exclusion part of an increasingly desperate conflict. It was first performed and published in 1831.
1831 · play · Fiction
Spine number 03
The Tower of Nesle
Young men disappear after mysterious invitations to a tower beside the Seine, while the adventurer Buridan discovers a route into the queen’s secrets. This melodrama combines a medieval setting with disguises, blackmail and buried family history. Dumas reworked Frédéric Gaillardet’s play for its 1832 production; their dispute over authorship followed its success.
1832 · play · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 04
Travels in Switzerland
Dumas follows roads, lakes and mountain paths through Switzerland, stopping for conversations, meals and accounts of local history. His travel narrative also makes room for legends and invented stories, including material later developed in Pauline. Published as Impressions de voyage from 1833 to 1837, the volume combines substantial fictional storytelling with the record of his 1832 journey.
1833–1837 · book · Fiction & non-fiction
Spine number 05
Pauline
A woman glimpsed during a journey conceals a history that her companion gradually recounts. Pauline’s marriage to the self-possessed Horace de Beuzeval leads into a Gothic world of suspicious absences, hidden passages and danger. Published in 1838, the novel unfolds through stories told by Dumas’s fictionalised narrator, Alfred de Nerval and Pauline herself.
1838 · book · Fiction
Spine number 06
The Conspirators
Deprived of his military position and angry with the Regent, Raoul d’Harmental is drawn into a plan to seize control of France. A neighbouring young woman and her kindly guardian complicate his life among the conspirators. Published in French as Le Chevalier d’Harmental in 1842, the whole novel represents an early collaboration between Dumas and Auguste Maquet.
1842 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 07
Georges
Georges Munier returns to Mauritius determined to confront the racial prejudice that humiliated his family. Courtship, colonial power and slavery make his confidence difficult to sustain without a wider struggle. Published in 1843, the novel developed material supplied by Félicien Mallefille; the extent of his contribution remains disputed.
1843 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 08
The Three Musketeers
The young Gascon d’Artagnan arrives in Paris hoping to join the king’s musketeers and encounters Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Their friendship draws him into dangerous business involving the queen, Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. First published in 1844, this novel opens the Musketeers trilogy and represents the whole collaboration with Auguste Maquet.
1844 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 09
The Corsican Brothers
A traveller meets Lucien de Franchi in Corsica and later visits his twin brother Louis in Paris. An uncanny bond connects the brothers across the distance between them, while the demands of honour make that connection dangerous. This short novel first appeared in Brussels in 1844 as Une famille corse.
1844 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 10
The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmond Dantès is a young sailor whose promising future is destroyed by a false accusation. Imprisonment, unexpected knowledge and the possibility of a new identity open the way to an elaborate reckoning with those who betrayed him. This entry represents the original book publication of 1845–1846, following the start of the newspaper serial in 1844, and credits Auguste Maquet’s contribution to the whole novel.
1845–1846 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 11
Twenty Years After
D’Artagnan seeks out his old companions in a France divided by the Fronde, only to find that their allegiances have changed. Their adventures extend to England, where another civil conflict tests the strength of their friendship. Published in 1845 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this is the second novel in the Musketeers trilogy.
1845 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 12
Queen Margot
Marguerite de Valois marries the Protestant king of Navarre in a court where the promise of peace conceals violent rivalries. Around her, La Mole and Coconnas encounter love and friendship across religious divisions. This first novel of the Valois trilogy appeared in book form in 1845 after serial publication began in December 1844; Auguste Maquet collaborated on the whole work.
1845 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 13
The Knight of Maison-Rouge
In revolutionary Paris, Maurice Lindey’s love for Geneviève brings a committed republican into contact with royalists trying to rescue Marie-Antoinette. Friendship and personal loyalty become increasingly dangerous when every association can arouse suspicion. Published in book form in 1846, the novel was written with Auguste Maquet.
1846 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 14
The Lady of Monsoreau
Bussy d’Amboise falls in love with Diane de Méridor amid the rivalries of Henry III’s court. Her unwanted ties to the Count of Monsoreau and the ambitions of the Duke of Anjou turn their attachment into a political danger. Published in 1846 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this second Valois novel also introduces the king’s resourceful jester Chicot.
1846 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 15
Joseph Balsamo
A mysterious traveller with powers of mesmerism crosses the path of the Taverney family as Marie-Antoinette arrives in France. Court ambition, private vulnerability and a secret campaign against monarchy intersect in a sprawling historical adventure. Issued in book form from 1846 to 1848 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this novel begins the Memoirs of a Physician sequence.
1846–1848 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 16
The Forty-Five Guardsmen
Forty-five Gascon gentlemen are recruited to protect Henry III while the Guise faction and the king’s brother pursue their own ambitions. Chicot’s missions and the unresolved grievances of earlier characters carry the story between France and Flanders. Published in 1847–1848 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, the third Valois novel leaves threads open for a continuation Dumas never wrote.
1847–1848 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 17
The Vicomte de Bragelonne
The ageing musketeers face a changing world as Louis XIV takes personal control of the kingdom. Athos’s son Raoul and the competing interests of Fouquet, Colbert and Aramis draw friendship into the intrigues of a younger court. Published from 1847 to 1850 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this entry covers the whole concluding novel, including the episode often issued separately as The Man in the Iron Mask.
1847–1850 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 18
A Thousand and One Ghosts
A disturbing incident after a hunting excursion prompts a dinner-table discussion about whether death truly ends human experience. The guests answer with stories of severed heads, haunted lives and encounters with the apparently dead. This entry covers the linked supernatural tales first published in 1849, written with Paul Bocage and Paul Lacroix, rather than later expanded collections bearing the same title.
1849 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 19
The Queen’s Necklace
An ambitious countess sees a route to influence in Cardinal de Rohan’s desire to regain Marie-Antoinette’s favour. A magnificent diamond necklace becomes the centre of deceptions that spread through the court and beyond it. Published in 1849–1850 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this second Memoirs of a Physician novel reimagines the historical affair rather than offering a factual account.
1849–1850 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 20
The Black Tulip
Cornelius van Baerle hopes to grow a perfectly black tulip, but political upheaval and a neighbour’s jealousy place both his freedom and his work at risk. Rosa, the jailer’s daughter, becomes central to his efforts to preserve the bulbs. Published in 1850, this Dutch historical romance gives a small cast and a single absorbing project the suspense of a larger adventure.
1850 · book · Fiction
Spine number 21
Ange Pitou
The awkward young Ange Pitou accompanies the farmer Billot to Paris just as the Revolution begins. Village affections and the fate of the physician Gilbert meet the crowds gathering around the Bastille. Published in 1850–1851 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, the third Memoirs of a Physician novel ends earlier than Dumas intended, with its narrative continued in The Countess de Charny.
1850–1851 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 22
My Memoirs
Dumas recalls his father, his childhood at Villers-Cotterêts and the uncertain route from a provincial office to the Paris stage. Encounters with writers and actors widen into an account of Romantic theatre and the politics of the July Revolution. Published in book form from 1852 to 1856, these memoirs present a storyteller’s expansive version of his early life.
1852–1856 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 23
The Countess de Charny
Andrée de Charny’s marriage and her place beside Marie-Antoinette become increasingly difficult as the royal family loses its freedom. The people introduced in the earlier novels must find their way through a Revolution whose pace exceeds any individual’s plans. Published in 1852–1855 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this fourth Memoirs of a Physician novel continues the story curtailed in Ange Pitou.
1852–1855 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 24
The Mohicans of Paris
Three young friends encounter Salvator, a Paris messenger whose knowledge of the city reaches far beyond his occupation. Artists, police, conspirators and families with concealed histories meet in a network of mysteries under Charles X. Published in 1854–1859 with Paul Bocage’s collaboration, the whole novel is sometimes divided between The Mohicans of Paris and Salvator.
1854–1859 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 25
The Companions of Jehu
As Bonaparte returns from Egypt, royalist companions rob government coaches to fund resistance to the Republic. Roland de Montrevel’s pursuit of the band becomes entangled with loyalties within his own family. Published in 1857, this historical adventure forms part of the sequence continued by The Whites and the Blues and The Knight of Sainte-Hermine.
1857 · book · Fiction
Spine number 26
The Wolf Leader
Thibault, a poor shoemaker in the woods near Villers-Cotterêts, accepts an offer from a strange black wolf. The power to harm those he envies gradually changes his dealings with both people and animals. Published in 1857 with Gaspard de Cherville’s collaboration, the novel combines a supernatural bargain with the forest setting of Dumas’s childhood.
1857 · book · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 27
La San Felice
Luisa San Felice shelters a wounded republican agent as the court of Naples prepares for war with France. Their attachment becomes part of the struggle surrounding the short-lived Neapolitan Republic of 1799. This entry covers the whole novel issued in book form in 1864–1865, including material later published separately as Emma Lyonna.
1864–1865 · book · Fiction
Spine number 28
The Whites and the Blues
Young Charles Nodier encounters a revolutionary France divided by rival convictions and threatened at its borders. The narrative ranges from Strasbourg and the Terror to campaigns that bring Bonaparte into view. Published in book form in 1867–1868, it supplies the earlier historical setting for The Companions of Jehu.
1867–1868 · book · Fiction
Spine number 29
Grand Dictionary of Cuisine
Ingredients, dishes and cooks provide the entries in an alphabetical exploration of food and the pleasures of eating. Recipes share space with memories of travel, historical anecdotes and Dumas’s opinions about taste. First published after his death in 1873, the manuscript was prepared for publication by Leconte de Lisle and Anatole France, with contributions and culinary supervision by Denis-Joseph Vuillemot. This entry covers the whole collaborative publication.
1873 · book · Non-fiction · Posthumous · Collaboration
Spine number 30
The Knight of Sainte-Hermine
Hector de Sainte-Hermine inherits a family’s royalist obligations while Bonaparte consolidates his power. His divided loyalties carry him through imprisonment, naval adventure and the military world of the emerging Empire. Dumas left the novel unfinished after newspaper publication in 1869–1870; this entry represents its first book edition, established by Claude Schopp in 2005 with an editorial ending.
2005 · book · Fiction · Unfinished · Posthumous
Dumas offers several ways in: the companionship of the musketeers, the long design of a revenge story, or a shorter encounter with the uncanny. Choose the scale and mood that appeal to you, then follow the musketeers into their more divided middle years.
Where to begin
Start here
The Three Musketeers
The quick dialogue and the uneasy friendship between d’Artagnan and his new companions make this a lively introduction to Dumas’s storytelling. Let the comedy sit beside the danger: the characters’ courage and loyalty do not make their choices simple.
In the collection About 15 hr 15 min at 250 words/min
For a shorter adventure
The Corsican Brothers
This compact story moves between Corsica and Paris without the large cast of the historical sequences. Its traveller’s voice and uncanny bond between the twins offer a different route into Dumas’s interest in honour, violence and the demands of family.
Not yet in our collection
For a long story of revenge
The Count of Monte Cristo
Choose this if you enjoy watching hidden connections and carefully prepared plans emerge across a substantial novel. The suspense grows through changes of identity and encounters whose meaning becomes clearer over time, so give its broad cast room to develop.
Not yet in our collection
Read next
Twenty Years After
After The Three Musketeers, return to the friends when age and political allegiance have pulled them in different directions. The familiar repartee now carries the added weight of memory and disagreement, making the sequel a useful way to see how Dumas changes the terms of an adventure.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1829
Henry III and His Court
play
At the court of Henry III, Saint-Mégrin’s love for the Duchess of Guise becomes entangled with a struggle for influence over the king. Political manoeuvres and a jealous husband drive this five-act historical drama, first performed and published in 1829.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1831
Antony
play
Antony returns to the life of Adèle d’Hervey, now a wife and mother, and revives a love that neither can easily abandon. This contemporary Romantic drama makes birth, reputation and social exclusion part of an increasingly desperate conflict. It was first performed and published in 1831.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1832
The Tower of Nesle
play · Collaboration
Young men disappear after mysterious invitations to a tower beside the Seine, while the adventurer Buridan discovers a route into the queen’s secrets. This melodrama combines a medieval setting with disguises, blackmail and buried family history. Dumas reworked Frédéric Gaillardet’s play for its 1832 production; their dispute over authorship followed its success.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1833–1837
Travels in Switzerland
book
Dumas follows roads, lakes and mountain paths through Switzerland, stopping for conversations, meals and accounts of local history. His travel narrative also makes room for legends and invented stories, including material later developed in Pauline. Published as Impressions de voyage from 1833 to 1837, the volume combines substantial fictional storytelling with the record of his 1832 journey.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1838
Pauline
book
A woman glimpsed during a journey conceals a history that her companion gradually recounts. Pauline’s marriage to the self-possessed Horace de Beuzeval leads into a Gothic world of suspicious absences, hidden passages and danger. Published in 1838, the novel unfolds through stories told by Dumas’s fictionalised narrator, Alfred de Nerval and Pauline herself.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1842
The Conspirators
book · Collaboration
Deprived of his military position and angry with the Regent, Raoul d’Harmental is drawn into a plan to seize control of France. A neighbouring young woman and her kindly guardian complicate his life among the conspirators. Published in French as Le Chevalier d’Harmental in 1842, the whole novel represents an early collaboration between Dumas and Auguste Maquet.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1843
Georges
book · Collaboration
Georges Munier returns to Mauritius determined to confront the racial prejudice that humiliated his family. Courtship, colonial power and slavery make his confidence difficult to sustain without a wider struggle. Published in 1843, the novel developed material supplied by Félicien Mallefille; the extent of his contribution remains disputed.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1844
The Corsican Brothers
novella
A traveller meets Lucien de Franchi in Corsica and later visits his twin brother Louis in Paris. An uncanny bond connects the brothers across the distance between them, while the demands of honour make that connection dangerous. This short novel first appeared in Brussels in 1844 as Une famille corse.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1844
The Three Musketeers
book · Collaboration
The young Gascon d’Artagnan arrives in Paris hoping to join the king’s musketeers and encounters Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Their friendship draws him into dangerous business involving the queen, Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. First published in 1844, this novel opens the Musketeers trilogy and represents the whole collaboration with Auguste Maquet.
In the collection
Published 1845
Queen Margot
book · Collaboration
Marguerite de Valois marries the Protestant king of Navarre in a court where the promise of peace conceals violent rivalries. Around her, La Mole and Coconnas encounter love and friendship across religious divisions. This first novel of the Valois trilogy appeared in book form in 1845 after serial publication began in December 1844; Auguste Maquet collaborated on the whole work.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1845–1846
The Count of Monte Cristo
book · Collaboration
Edmond Dantès is a young sailor whose promising future is destroyed by a false accusation. Imprisonment, unexpected knowledge and the possibility of a new identity open the way to an elaborate reckoning with those who betrayed him. This entry represents the original book publication of 1845–1846, following the start of the newspaper serial in 1844, and credits Auguste Maquet’s contribution to the whole novel.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1845
Twenty Years After
book · Collaboration
D’Artagnan seeks out his old companions in a France divided by the Fronde, only to find that their allegiances have changed. Their adventures extend to England, where another civil conflict tests the strength of their friendship. Published in 1845 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this is the second novel in the Musketeers trilogy.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846–1848
Joseph Balsamo
book · Collaboration
A mysterious traveller with powers of mesmerism crosses the path of the Taverney family as Marie-Antoinette arrives in France. Court ambition, private vulnerability and a secret campaign against monarchy intersect in a sprawling historical adventure. Issued in book form from 1846 to 1848 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this novel begins the Memoirs of a Physician sequence.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846
The Knight of Maison-Rouge
book · Collaboration
In revolutionary Paris, Maurice Lindey’s love for Geneviève brings a committed republican into contact with royalists trying to rescue Marie-Antoinette. Friendship and personal loyalty become increasingly dangerous when every association can arouse suspicion. Published in book form in 1846, the novel was written with Auguste Maquet.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846
The Lady of Monsoreau
book · Collaboration
Bussy d’Amboise falls in love with Diane de Méridor amid the rivalries of Henry III’s court. Her unwanted ties to the Count of Monsoreau and the ambitions of the Duke of Anjou turn their attachment into a political danger. Published in 1846 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this second Valois novel also introduces the king’s resourceful jester Chicot.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1847–1848
The Forty-Five Guardsmen
book · Collaboration
Forty-five Gascon gentlemen are recruited to protect Henry III while the Guise faction and the king’s brother pursue their own ambitions. Chicot’s missions and the unresolved grievances of earlier characters carry the story between France and Flanders. Published in 1847–1848 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, the third Valois novel leaves threads open for a continuation Dumas never wrote.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1847–1850
The Vicomte de Bragelonne
book · Collaboration
The ageing musketeers face a changing world as Louis XIV takes personal control of the kingdom. Athos’s son Raoul and the competing interests of Fouquet, Colbert and Aramis draw friendship into the intrigues of a younger court. Published from 1847 to 1850 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this entry covers the whole concluding novel, including the episode often issued separately as The Man in the Iron Mask.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1849
A Thousand and One Ghosts
collection · Collaboration
A disturbing incident after a hunting excursion prompts a dinner-table discussion about whether death truly ends human experience. The guests answer with stories of severed heads, haunted lives and encounters with the apparently dead. This entry covers the linked supernatural tales first published in 1849, written with Paul Bocage and Paul Lacroix, rather than later expanded collections bearing the same title.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1849–1850
The Queen’s Necklace
book · Collaboration
An ambitious countess sees a route to influence in Cardinal de Rohan’s desire to regain Marie-Antoinette’s favour. A magnificent diamond necklace becomes the centre of deceptions that spread through the court and beyond it. Published in 1849–1850 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this second Memoirs of a Physician novel reimagines the historical affair rather than offering a factual account.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1850–1851
Ange Pitou
book · Collaboration
The awkward young Ange Pitou accompanies the farmer Billot to Paris just as the Revolution begins. Village affections and the fate of the physician Gilbert meet the crowds gathering around the Bastille. Published in 1850–1851 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, the third Memoirs of a Physician novel ends earlier than Dumas intended, with its narrative continued in The Countess de Charny.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1850
The Black Tulip
book
Cornelius van Baerle hopes to grow a perfectly black tulip, but political upheaval and a neighbour’s jealousy place both his freedom and his work at risk. Rosa, the jailer’s daughter, becomes central to his efforts to preserve the bulbs. Published in 1850, this Dutch historical romance gives a small cast and a single absorbing project the suspense of a larger adventure.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1852–1856
My Memoirs
book
Dumas recalls his father, his childhood at Villers-Cotterêts and the uncertain route from a provincial office to the Paris stage. Encounters with writers and actors widen into an account of Romantic theatre and the politics of the July Revolution. Published in book form from 1852 to 1856, these memoirs present a storyteller’s expansive version of his early life.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1852–1855
The Countess de Charny
book · Collaboration
Andrée de Charny’s marriage and her place beside Marie-Antoinette become increasingly difficult as the royal family loses its freedom. The people introduced in the earlier novels must find their way through a Revolution whose pace exceeds any individual’s plans. Published in 1852–1855 with Auguste Maquet’s collaboration, this fourth Memoirs of a Physician novel continues the story curtailed in Ange Pitou.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1854–1859
The Mohicans of Paris
book · Collaboration
Three young friends encounter Salvator, a Paris messenger whose knowledge of the city reaches far beyond his occupation. Artists, police, conspirators and families with concealed histories meet in a network of mysteries under Charles X. Published in 1854–1859 with Paul Bocage’s collaboration, the whole novel is sometimes divided between The Mohicans of Paris and Salvator.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1857
The Companions of Jehu
book
As Bonaparte returns from Egypt, royalist companions rob government coaches to fund resistance to the Republic. Roland de Montrevel’s pursuit of the band becomes entangled with loyalties within his own family. Published in 1857, this historical adventure forms part of the sequence continued by The Whites and the Blues and The Knight of Sainte-Hermine.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1857
The Wolf Leader
book · Collaboration
Thibault, a poor shoemaker in the woods near Villers-Cotterêts, accepts an offer from a strange black wolf. The power to harm those he envies gradually changes his dealings with both people and animals. Published in 1857 with Gaspard de Cherville’s collaboration, the novel combines a supernatural bargain with the forest setting of Dumas’s childhood.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1864–1865
La San Felice
book
Luisa San Felice shelters a wounded republican agent as the court of Naples prepares for war with France. Their attachment becomes part of the struggle surrounding the short-lived Neapolitan Republic of 1799. This entry covers the whole novel issued in book form in 1864–1865, including material later published separately as Emma Lyonna.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1867–1868
The Whites and the Blues
book
Young Charles Nodier encounters a revolutionary France divided by rival convictions and threatened at its borders. The narrative ranges from Strasbourg and the Terror to campaigns that bring Bonaparte into view. Published in book form in 1867–1868, it supplies the earlier historical setting for The Companions of Jehu.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1873
Grand Dictionary of Cuisine
book · Posthumous · Collaboration
Ingredients, dishes and cooks provide the entries in an alphabetical exploration of food and the pleasures of eating. Recipes share space with memories of travel, historical anecdotes and Dumas’s opinions about taste. First published after his death in 1873, the manuscript was prepared for publication by Leconte de Lisle and Anatole France, with contributions and culinary supervision by Denis-Joseph Vuillemot. This entry covers the whole collaborative publication.
Not yet in our collection
Published 2005
The Knight of Sainte-Hermine
book · Unfinished · Posthumous
Hector de Sainte-Hermine inherits a family’s royalist obligations while Bonaparte consolidates his power. His divided loyalties carry him through imprisonment, naval adventure and the military world of the emerging Empire. Dumas left the novel unfinished after newspaper publication in 1869–1870; this entry represents its first book edition, established by Claude Schopp in 2005 with an editorial ending.
Not yet in our collection
Alexandre Dumas was a French novelist and dramatist whose adventures turn friendship, ambition and revenge into stories of divided loyalties. His characters move through courts, prisons and conspiracies, with brisk dialogue and plots that bring private desires into conflict with public events. The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo are his best-known novels; their humour, suspense and moral complications also run through his longer historical sequences. He is often called Dumas père to distinguish him from his son, the novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas fils.
Born in Villers-Cotterêts in 1802, Dumas was the son of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, whose parents were a French nobleman and an enslaved Black woman in Saint-Domingue. He moved to Paris in 1823 and established himself in the Romantic theatre with Henry III and His Court and Antony. His later novels often appeared in newspaper instalments, and many were written in collaboration with Auguste Maquet, who contributed historical research and narrative drafts.
Dumas also wrote travel accounts, memoirs and food writing. His journeys took him across Europe and to North Africa, Russia and the Caucasus; in Italy he supported Garibaldi and worked as a journalist in Naples. He died at Puys, near Dieppe, in 1870. His Grand Dictionary of Cuisine, published after his death, brings recipes together with anecdotes and the curiosity about people and places that animates his fiction.