Alexandre Dumas fils

Alexandre Dumas fils was a French dramatist and novelist, the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas père and the author of La dame aux camélias. The novel of 1848 grew from his brief liaison with the courtesan Marie Duplessis, and his own stage version, first given at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in February 1852 after trouble with the censor, was a triumph and began his career in the theatre. Verdi's La traviata followed in 1853. Dumas went on to write well-made plays increasingly concerned with the ills of society, and was elected to the Académie française in 1874.