Alexandre Dumas
1802–1870 · France
“All for one, one for all!”
Peak-work percentile in the canon.
The lineage through Alexandre Dumas
Drew From(1)
who shaped Alexandre Dumas
- Edmond Dantès reinvents himself as a Sinbad the Sailor — the chapter is named for it — and his treasure cave is pure Ali Baba
- The Count of Monte Cristo borrows the Nights' machinery of disguise, sudden riches, and patient, ornate vengeance; a visitor even calls his retreat "something out of The Arabian Nights"
- Dumas knew the tales through Galland's French translation; reading them first shows you the fabulist engine humming under the realism
Inspired(1)
who Alexandre Dumas shaped
- Verne met Dumas in 1849 and the two became close friends — and Dumas's vengeful exile Edmond Dantès is the model behind Verne's Captain Nemo
- Nemo's isolation, his hidden fortune, his revenge nursed in self-imposed banishment: Dantès transplanted from a Mediterranean island to the deep sea
- Verne later called another of his heroes "the Monte Cristo of my Extraordinary Voyages" — the debt was conscious
Portraits
The defining likeness: Nadar's 1855 studio portrait of the seated, white-haired Dumas, the photograph most reproduced today (copies at the Met, Cleveland, BnF).
Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), 1855
High-resolution Cleveland Museum print of the same 1855 Nadar sitting; minimalist prop-free framing that became the standard Dumas portrait.
Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), 1855
Famous Quotes
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope.”
“All for one, one for all—that is our motto, is it not?”
“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—'Wait and hope.'”
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next.”
About Alexandre Dumas
French novelist and playwright, one of the most widely read French authors in history. The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo are among the most popular adventure novels ever written. Of mixed French and Afro-Caribbean descent, he was enormously prolific, employing collaborators to help produce his vast output.
