"His blood is lava, his thoughts are sparks—generous and liberal like an artist and poet, too liberal with friendship, too tyrannical in love, straightforward to the point of tactlessness, obligatory to the point of recklessness, forgetful to the point of carelessness, cheerful in temperament, sharp-tongued—so loved for his faults as much as for his virtues: here he is, Mr. Dumas, exactly as he is."
Grandson of a Black slave and the eccentric marquis, son of a disgraced Napoleonic general and a provincial innkeeper, an untiring Don Juan and gourmet, an avid traveler and duelist, a royalist and a passionate revolutionary—owner of the “secret plantation of white slaves,” an unsuccessful politician, the most popular and scandalous author of the nineteenth century, Alexandre Dumas père lived a bright and eventful life, like one of his best novels.