Alexandre Dumas

The last of Alexandre Dumas''s many mistresses, the American actress Adah Menken, called him "the king of romance." She was not thinking only of his immensely popular novels The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo - everything about Dumas was touched with the spirit of romance, and it is that spirit which this exhilarating biography captures.

There was romance in Dumas''s ori­gins. He gr...