Alexandre Dumas

Both novels were originally serialized in 1844, with "The Three Musketeers" appearing in the newspaper Le Siècle and "The Count of Monte Cristo" in the Journal des Débats. Their immense popularity helped make Dumas one of the most widely read French authors of his era.

Yes, Dumas was of mixed African and European heritage; his paternal grandmother Marie-Cessette Dumas was a Black woman from Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti). His father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, rose to the rank of general in the French Revolutionary army, one of the highest-ranking officers of African descent in any European army.

Dumas worked extensively with collaborators, most notably Auguste Maquet, who helped research and draft several of Dumas's most famous novels. Dumas ran a prolific literary workshop, which led to controversies about how much of his enormous output was written solely by him.

Alexandre Dumas (père) was the father of Alexandre Dumas (fils), who became a celebrated writer in his own right, known for "The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias, 1848). The younger Dumas's novel was adapted into Giuseppe Verdi's opera "La Traviata."