Alexandre Dumas was born on 24 July 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts. In 1822 he went to Paris and found employment in the administration of the former Duke of Orléans. At the same time he was active as a lyricist, author of plays and journalist. His breakthrough came in 1829 with the play Henry III and His Court and he became a local celebrity. A prolific author, he owed most of his masterpieces to fruitful collaborations with writers such as Auguste Maquet, with whom he drafted the Musketeer Trilogy and The Count of Monte Cristo. These novels were first published as serial novels and paved the way for a new literary genre, the feuilleton novel. He lived large, had high expenses and had the Monte Christo castle built, which left him in debt. Dumas died on 5 December 1870 in Puys, near Dieppe.