The French author Alexandre Dumas, known as Dumas fils, b

The French author Alexandre Dumas, known as Dumas fils, b. July 27, 1824, d. Nov. 27, 1895, was the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas pere. Like his illustrious father, he wrote novels and plays, establishing the genre known as the problem, or thesis, play. His output was copious, but it far from equalled the avalanche of works produced by his father. But Dumas fils, unlike his father, worked without collaborators.

Dumas's most famous work is La Dame aux camelias, known in English as Camille, which appeared both as a novel (1848; Eng. trans., 1931) and as a play (1852; Eng. trans., 1956). The theatrical version became and remains world famous, serving as a vehicle for such actresses as Sarah Bernhardt, Edwige Feuillere, and Greta Garbo; it also inspired Verdi's opera La Traviata. It is the story of a Parisian courtesan purified and morally regenerated by the passion of love.

Another of his widely popular plays, Le Demi-Monde (1855; Eng. trans., 1858; trans. as The Outer Edge of Society, 1921), deals with the same milieu as that of Camille.

In his choice of subjects, Dumas fils pointed the way toward the naturalism of such authors as Emile Zola. His father's tastes and abilities favored the historical novel and the adventure tale, but Dumas fils preferred to write of contemporary society. Although vestiges of romanticism can be noted in his works, Dumas fils attempted to analyze the social ills of his times. The tone of his work is somewhat moralizing, but his plays have remained attractive to theater audiences because he gives his characters' emotions free range. His other novels and plays, less well known today, include Tristan le Roux (1850) and L'Affaire Clemenceau (1866). He was admitted to the Academie Francaise in 1875.

Joseph A. Reiter

Bibliography: Gribble, Francis, Dumas: Father and Son (1930; repr. 1973); Maurois, Andr, The Titans: A Three-Generation Biography of the Dumas, trans. by Gerard Hopkins (1957; repr. 1971); Schwarz, H. Stanley, Alexandre Dumas Fils: Dramatist (1927).