Summary:
A famous French writer of the nineteenth century, Alexander Dumas is well known for his swashbuckling adventures, namely The Three Musketeers. The following is a brief summary of his life.
Alexander Dumas was one of the most famous French writers of the 19th century. He was born on 1802, and his father was a general under Napoleon. Young Dumas never liked school as a child, and he could neither do math nor does he have any other talents. But the selling point Dumas possessed was his handwriting, and it was because of his beautiful handwriting that he was accepted by General Foy and given a chance to start his career in Paris.
At first Dumas worked as a clerk, earning a mere four francs and five sous a day. He tried to write his own masterpieces, but time and conditions not allowing, they were nothing more than mediocre pieces.
But Dumas, a daring young man with great ambitions and confidence, took his first move towards fame and success. He transferred departments to a section with no night work and wrote the play Christina, a poetic drama in five acts, in four days. It is by writing plays that Dumas made several influential friends, and it was also through play-writing Dumas was accepted by a very high-class of audiences. All plays had to be approved by the committee of the Comedie-Francaise, and it sometimes it takes years to get your play read in front of the committee.
Dumas' career, jump-started by Christina, continued to go uphill. His next play, Henri III and His Court, was presented to an audience with the Duke d'Orleans at the Palais Royal. Dumas' wittiness became famous. For example, if someone asked: "well, Dumas, and how did the dinner go"" To which he would reply: "Not too well! If I hadn't been there, I should have been bored."
Dumas' plays received a frantic ovation from the audience, and all classes of people, rich or poor, came to see it. But until 1844, for audiences and critics alike, Alexander Dumas was only a playwright. He did write a few other works, but he was mainly known for his plays. And then - the musketeers series.
Still in the days when novels were published in episodes in newspapers, Dumas immediately attracted a huge number of subscribers. Dumas knew that it's far better to be boring at the beginning than at the end, but in a serial, an author has no right ever to be boring. So Dumas always plunged right into the thick of things, and in 1838 one of his serial novels, Captain Paul, had earned the Siecle five thousand new subscribers in three weeks. Borrowing many ideas from Memoires of M. d'Artagnan, Captain-Lieutenant in the First Company of the King's Musketeers by Gatien de Courtilz, Dumas collaborated the plot, adding the story of Mme Bonacieux and Milady de Winter to spice up the plot, and Grimaud to multiply his revenue.
Dumas is actually half Negro, and that may be partly why his works were popular among the 19th-century African-Americans. But in general, Dumas wrote for audience of all age and all class, and there's no doubt about his popularity with the audience. His wittiness and understanding of how to grasp the audience's excitement made him a very successful writer for both the mass and critics.
This is the complete article, containing 528 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
