Alexandre Dumasfils (French:[alɛksɑ̃dʁ(ə)dymɑfis]; 27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) was a French author and playwright, best known for theromantic novelLa Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias, usually titledCamille in English-language versions), published in 1848, which was adapted intoGiuseppe Verdi's 1853 operaLa traviata (The Fallen Woman), as well as numerous stage and film productions.
Dumas was born in Paris, France, theillegitimate child ofMarie-Laure-Catherine Labay [ru] (1794–1868), adressmaker, and novelistAlexandre Dumas. In 1831 his father legally recognized him and ensured that the young Dumas received the best education possible at theCollège Bourbon. At that time, the law allowed the elder Dumas to take the child away from his mother. Her agony inspired the younger Dumas to write about tragic female characters. In almost all of his writings, he emphasized the moral purpose of literature; in his playThe Illegitimate Son [d] (1858) he espoused the belief that if a man fathers an illegitimate child, then he has an obligation to legitimize the child and marry the woman (seeIllegitimacy in fiction). At boarding schools, he was constantly taunted by his classmates because of his family situation. These issues profoundly influenced his thoughts, behaviour, and writing.[citation needed]
In 1844, Dumas moved toSaint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, to live with his father. There he metMarie Duplessis, a youngcourtesan who would be the inspiration for the character Marguerite Gauthier in his romantic novelLa Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias). Adapted into a play, it was titledCamille in English and became the basis forVerdi's 1853 opera,La traviata, Duplessis undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valéry.[citation needed]
Although he admitted that he had done the adaptation because he needed the money, he had great success with the play, which started his career as a dramatist. He was not only more renowned than his father during his lifetime, but also dominated the serious French stage for most of the second half of the 19th century. After this, he virtually abandoned writing novels, though his semi-autobiographicalAffaire Clémenceau (1866) achieved some solid success.[citation needed]
On 31 December 1864, in Moscow, Dumas marriedNadezhda von Knorring [ru] (1826–April 1895), daughter of Johan Reinhold von Knorring and widow of Alexander Grigorievich Narishkin. The couple had two daughters:Marie-Alexandrine-Henriette "Colette" Dumas [fr] (born 20 November 1860), who married Maurice Lippmann and was the mother of Serge Napoléon Lippmann (1886–1975) andAuguste Alexandre Lippmann (1881–1960); and Jeanine Dumas (3 May 1867–1943), who married Ernest Lecourt d'Hauterive (1864–1957), son of George Lecourt d'Hauterive and his wife, Léontine de Leusse. After Nadezhda's death, Dumas married Henriette Régnier de La Brière (1851–1934) in June 1895, without issue.[citation needed]
