Famous Creoles
Rosette Rochon
  Harold Doley
  Andre Cailloux
  Dr. Roudanez
  Francis E. Dumas
  Jean Baptiste Du Sable
  Jelly Roll Morton
  Fats Domino
  Henriette Delille
  General Beauregard
  Norbert Rillieux
  Louis Moreau Gottschalk
  Rose Nicaud
  Morris W. Morris
  Edmonde Dede
  Louis A. Snaer
  Pinchback
  Don Vappie
  John Audobon
  Joan Bennett
  Jean Lafitte
  Morton Downey Jr.
  Julien Hudson
  Illinois Jacquet
  Bryant C. Gumbel
  Marie Laveau
  Gilbert E. Martin
  Rudolphe Lucien Desdunes
  Ernest Morial
  Bill Picket
  John Willis Menard
  Bishop Healy
  Homer Plessy
  Ward Connerly
AP Tureaud
  Bishop Olivier
  George Herriman
  Alexander Dumas
 
 
 
  Alexandre Dumas
 


One of the most famous French writers of the 19th century. Dumas is best known for the historical novels The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both written within the space of two years, 1844-45, and which belong to the foundation works of popular culture.

He was among the first, along with Honoré de Balzac and Eugène Sue, who fully used the possibilities of roman feuilleton, the serial novel. Dumas is credited with revitalizing the historical novel in France, although his abilities as a writer were under dispute from the beginning. Dumas' works are fast-paced adventure tales. They are not faithful to the historical facts, but blend skillfully history and fiction.

Alexandre Dumas was born in Villes-Cotterêts, France. His grandfather was a French nobleman, who had settled in Santo Domingo; his paternal grandmother, Marie-Cessette, was a Creole, who had been a creole slave in the French colony.

Dumas's father was a general in Napoleon's army, who had fallen out of favor. After his death in 1806 the family lived in poverty. Dumas worked as a notary's clerk in Villers-Cotterêtes and went in 1823 to Paris to find work. Due to his elegant handwriting he secured a position with the Duc d'Orléans - later King Louis Philippe. He also found his place in theater and as a publisher of some obscure magazines. An illegitimate son called Alexandre Dumas fils, whose mother, Marie-Catherine Labay, was a dressmaker, was born in 1824.

Dumas did not generally define himself as a black man, and there is not much evidence that he encountered overt racism during his life. However, his works were popular among the19th-century African-Americans, partly because in The Count of Monte-Cristo, the falsely imprisoned Edmond Dantès, may be read as a parable of emancipation. In a shorter work, GEORGES (1843, George), Dumas examined the question of race and colonialism. The main character, a half-French mulatto, leaves Mauritius to be educated in France, and returns to avenge himself for the affronts he had suffered as a boy.

Credit: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/adumas1.htm

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