大仲马，（Alexandre Dumas l802～1870） 法国19世纪积极浪漫主义作家。其祖父是候爵德·拉·巴那特里，与黑奴结合生下其父，名亚历山大，受洗时用母姓仲马。法国大革命爆发后，亚历山大·仲马屡建奇功，当上共和政府将军。大仲马终生信守共和政见，一贯反对君主专政，憎恨复辟王朝，不满七月王朝，反对第二帝国。他饱尝种族歧视，心中受到创伤。家庭出身和经历使大仲马形成了反对不平、追求正义的叛逆性格。大仲马自学成才，一生写的各种类型作品达300卷之多，主要以小说和剧作著称于世。大仲马的剧本《享利第三及其宫廷》（1829）比雨果的《欧那尼》还早问世一年。这出浪漫主义戏剧，完全破除了古典主义“三一律”。大仲马小说多达百部，大都以 真实的历史作背景，以主人公的奇遇为内容，情节曲折生动，处处出人意外，堪称历史惊险小说。异乎寻常的理想英雄，急剧发展的故事情节，紧张的打斗动作，清晰明朗的完整结构，生动有力的语言，灵活机智的对话等构成了大仲马小说的特色。最著名的是 《三个火枪手》旧译《三剑客》，（1844）、《基督山伯爵》旧译《基度山伯爵》、《基度山恩仇记》。大仲马被别林斯基称为“一名天才的小说家”，他也是马克思“最喜欢”的作家之一。

去年初，巴黎麦松纳沃•罗斯出版社的社长保尔•努瓦罗说，将在秋天举行一个大仲马国际研讨会。之后，龚古尔文学院院士、大仲马之友协会的会长迪迪耶•德古安倡议，在大仲马诞辰200周年之际，将大仲马的遗骨从其故乡维勒科特莱迁入葬有维克多•雨果的先贤祠。届时，法国历史学家阿兰•德果致辞申明：法国学界历来贬斥大仲马的做法是不公正的；而今，在先贤祠中立一个牌位，重塑大仲马形象，应是法兰西文坛的荣耀。但是，始终拒绝大仲马的法兰西文学院的院士们则认为大仲马的作品“粗制滥造”，只适合庶民消遣，不能登大雅之堂，将其存于先贤祠更是荒唐之举。而大仲马故乡的居民对德古安的提议相当抵制。因为，他们每年因大仲马的墓所带来的旅游收益相当可观，在专门为此举行的投票中，公民一致反对。为平息这一争端，法国文化部承诺，出资复制一尊大仲马铜像，重新竖立在其家乡。至于原铜像，已于1942年被纳粹占领军捣毁熔化了。

虽然对大仲马作品的文学性，法国文学界一向存有诸多质疑，但这位法国作家小说的魅力，是任何人均无法否认的。他的三部曲《三个火枪手》、《二十年后》、《勃拉热洛纳子爵》和《基督山伯爵》，迄今已被翻译成世界上几乎所有的语言，一次又一次地被搬上银幕和荧屏，为各国受众熟知，作为对历史的回顾，继续留在当代的文化与娱乐之中，丰富着人们的文化精神生活。其中，尤以《基督山伯爵》作为流传极广的故事与《勃拉热洛纳子爵》——大仲马最动人的小说，双举其名。

《基督山伯爵》创作于1844年，于1848年改编成剧本，被誉为法兰西的“奥德修纪”。这个引人入胜、情节跌宕的传奇故事，最早是由经济学教授蒋学模从英文转译成中文的，取名《基督山恩仇记》。尔后，又有几位译者从法文原著直译为《基督山伯爵》，总印数已逾百万册，是中国发行量最大的欧洲文学作品之一，至今畅销不衰。阿兰•德果回忆他11岁切除盲肠后，发现这部小说的情形：“我父亲送给我全书六卷，我每天吞咽一卷，终生留下深刻印象。”这部小说的情节主线取材于巴黎警察局档案保管员邦舍的《回忆录》，而作品中的“基督山伯爵”形象，早在与年轻的波拿巴亲王一同漫游意大利时，便浮现在大仲马脑海中了。后来，大仲马与马盖合作写成这部不朽之作。

在邦舍的《回忆录》中，我们可以找到《基督山伯爵》的事实轮廓：巴黎1807年的一天，一个名叫弗朗索瓦•比果的年轻鞋匠，穿着节日盛装前往其尼姆同乡——马蒂厄•卢比昂的咖啡馆，在那里遇见另外3个尼姆同乡。比果向其宣布，自己将要结婚，新娘叫玛格丽特•维戈鲁，是个有10万法郎的孤女。卢比昂对此心怀忌妒，为阻止比果的婚礼，他与其他3人商量，编造比果是英国间谍的谎言而告密当局。其中一个叫安东尼•阿吕的同乡，认为这是一场恶作剧；而其他两人，则要在嘉年华会上借此取乐，所以愿同卢比昂配合。此时，正值旺代保王党人暴动，拿破仑非常关注敌方活动。一位探长接到卢比昂的报案，觉得这是立功领赏的好机会，便立即报告了警察局总长萨瓦里，趁夜将比果逮捕。7年后的1814年，第一帝国崩溃，未老先衰的比果受尽折磨，从菲奈司特莱尔古堡出狱。在狱中，他倾心照顾一个因政治原因被囚禁的意大利教士，在其临死前将自己藏在米兰的伦巴第、威尼斯和英国造的大宗金币、法国金路易和西班牙铸币，均遗赠给了比果。比果脱离牢笼，寻到财宝，成为富豪。他化名约瑟夫•吕歇，返回巴黎，才得知自己的未婚妻嫁给了卢比昂。邻居向他讲述了7年前那场恶作剧的全部过程，说安东尼•阿吕住在吕姆市。他乔装成巴尔迪尼神甫，用一颗钻石从阿吕处换取了另外几个恶作剧者的姓名，开始执行其复仇计划。

几天后，卢比昂的咖啡馆里雇佣了一名侍者，他特别关注前来卢比昂咖啡店的尼姆老乡尚巴尔和索拉里，摸清其来踪去迹。一日，人们发现尚巴尔被人用匕首刺死在“艺术桥”，刀柄上写着“一号”两个大字。咖啡店老板卢比昂有一儿一女，女儿貌似天仙，16岁时被一个自称有百万家产的纨绔子弟诱奸怀孕。男方虽答应娶其为妻，但婚宴时却不见踪影。不久，传出他是个刑满释放犯。卢比昂一家万分惊愕。祸不单行，一个礼拜后，咖啡馆毁于一场神秘大火，彻底破产。同时，索拉里突然中毒身亡，棺材上钉着的纸片上，醒目地写着“二号”。卢比昂的儿子欧仁受一伙恶棍怂恿，撬锁盗窃，获罪被判处20年徒刑。接二连三的厄运使美丽的少妇玛格丽特•维戈鲁在痛苦中死去。此时，咖啡店新来的侍者普罗斯佩，以娶卢比昂的女儿黛莱丝为条件而从经济上帮助卢比昂。为了父亲，黛莱丝只得屈从这位不速之客，以身相许。卢比昂霎时失去了家产、荣誉和幸福。一天傍晚，一个蒙面人从土伊勒里花园一条黑暗的草径中蹿出，拦住卢比昂去路，当面揭穿了1807年的那桩陷害案后，将他杀死，并照例标出血腥大字“三号”。当复仇者走出土伊勒里花园时，安东尼•阿吕抓住他，将其扔进地窖并杀死。安东尼•阿吕犯案后，逃到英国躲藏，后于1828年病危时，向一名天主教士陈述了那段可怕的经历，要求在他死后，转告法国司法当局。

大仲马在这个故事的基础上，与马盖创作了《基督山伯爵》，但小说出版时未署马盖的名字，据艾米尔•德热拉丹解释：“一部长篇连载小说署名大仲马，其稿酬高达每行3法郎，但若与马盖联名，每行就会降低到30个苏。”马盖自1839年与大仲马合作，二人同游西班牙、阿尔及利亚，一起写出《阿赫芒塔尔骑士》、《希勒旺迪尔》、《三个火枪手》、《基督山伯爵》等多部长篇小说，直至1851年两人分手。尔后，马盖声明放弃他应有的一切版权，并致函大仲马：“能当法国最杰出小说家的合作者，我感到十分荣幸。”

大仲马以基督山伯爵自居，在圣日耳曼的玛尔里港买下一片坡地，请建筑师伊波利特•杜郎为他修筑《基督山伯爵》里梦想的“地上天堂”，小说里描绘的那座天方夜谭式的宫殿在此得以重现，这就是今天的“基督山古堡”。这组由一座奇特的文艺复兴风格的城堡和一幢哥特式楼阁组成的建筑，耗资20万法郎，费时18个月，竣工之日以“千人盛宴”庆祝。自此，大仲马乐居其中，了却其毕生宿愿。大仲马终日沉迷于醇酒美女，挥霍无度，1849年，在累累负债的无奈中，被迫以31000法郎的低价将古堡出卖。一个世纪后，一些房地产商拟将其全部拆毁，幸有阿兰•德果等著名人士强烈干预，古堡终得幸存。后，由大仲马之友协会出资赎回，修葺一新，其中的“摩尔沙龙”由崇拜“基督山楼主”的摩洛哥国王哈桑二世捐资整修，重放异彩，以供游客重温大仲马生前旧梦。

Alexandre Dumas
Born: Jul 24, 1802
Died: Dec 05, 1870
Active: '20s-'90s
Major Genres: Adventure
Career Highlights: Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers, Queen Margot
First Major Screen Credit: The Count of Monte Cristo (1912)
Biography
Alexandre Dumas may well have been the most popular novelist of the 19th century; to be sure, along with Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson, he stands among those 19th century novelists who retained their popularity best in the 20th century. His books, including The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask (which comprise only a small fraction of his fiction) continue to sell, well over 100 years after his death. His influence over our popular culture is so widespread and deeply implanted that, five generations after his death, mass audiences throughout the world still understand the meaning of references to the Three Musketeers or the Count of Monte Cristo. If Dumas' work has endured, it's because it was written from truth and from reality, astounding as that may seem on its face. The author's life, and that of his father's even more so, reads like the plot of one (or more) of his novels, and to properly understand the writer and his work, one must first understand his father.

Alexandre Dumas was descended from a noble family: his grandfather, the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was a direct descendant of Norman royalty and a one-time colonel and Commissaire General of artillery. Davy de la Pailleterie left France in the 1760s for the West Indies and bought a plantation on the eastern edge of Santo Domingo. There, he fathered a child by an Afro-Caribbean slave, Marie-Céssette Dumas, whom he subsequently married; the child, born on March 27, 1762, was named Thomas-Alexandre. The boy was given the Marquis' family name and was raised in the West Indies until 1780, eight years after the death of his mother, when the Marquis returned to Paris. The son, then 18 years old, was of mixed-race, but this was not a detriment -- by all accounts tall and powerfully built, with a strikingly handsome face, he had no trouble attracting positive attention to himself. He entered the army, which his father considered beneath the dignity of the Davy de la Pailleterie family, and so he enlisted as a private under the name of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, taking his mother's family name. He became a trooper in the Queen's dragoon regiment and achieved the rank of corporal in 1792, marrying Marie-Louise Elizabeth Labouret that same year. By virtue of his horsemanship, swordsmanship, and bravery in battle, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas overcame the "disability" of his seemingly common origin and was commissioned an officer in 1792 -- his battlefield promotions before the year ended catapulted him from lieutenant to lieutenant colonel in the cavalry. By July of the following year, he'd been elevated to general's rank, and he received the equivalent of two-star rank soon after. He rose from there to Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Pyrenees, and by the mid-decade was one of the highest ranking and most famous generals in the French army.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas survived the tumult of Napoleon's ascendancy, mostly by virtue of his genial manner and his extraordinary record of bravery. By all accounts, despite having the responsibility of a wife and family -- a daughter had been born in 1793 -- he thrived on dangerous missions and seemingly impossible military tasks. Indeed, his generalship and his utility in that rank were limited, in that he tended to take the battlefield and the missions himself, rather than delegating those tasks to others or working through intermediaries and lower-ranking officers. The rank did provide him with prestige, respect, and wide renown atop the stories of his exploits, and he had a winning personality as well as a common touch that endeared him to the soldiers and the civilians around him -- even as a military governor, often one of the most thankless jobs an officer can have, he managed to charm the civilian population he was to control. But it was as a swordsman and as a leader in personal combat that he was best known to the French; he was a true fighting general, unable to stay away from the battlefield, which accounted for his being twice wounded. The French sang his praises, while their enemies of the era, the Austrians, called him "the black devil."

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was an inspiring figure: in modern American terms, he was like George Patton, Davy Crockett and, most tellingly, one of his own future son's literary creations all rolled into one. His luck finally ended after a falling-out with the emperor while serving in Egypt; ironically, the elder Dumas was taken prisoner not in a battle but, rather, after being reassigned back to France when the ship that he was aboard was caught in a storm and forced to land in an enemy port. The resulting imprisonment, which included an extended attempt at poisoning him, broke his health. Once released, he found himself out of favor with Napoleon, bankrupt, and without a commission in the army; however, he was able, on his return home, to father a second child by his still-vibrant wife. A son, Alexandre Dumas, was born on July 24, 1802. The general died in 1806 at the age of 44, leaving behind an impoverished wife and two children.

By every account, Alexandre Dumas was as physically stunning as his father -- though his skin was lighter than Thomas-Alexandre's, he had hair that marked him as being of mixed-race heritage and an impressive physique that was thought of as "African." He was bigger and stronger than most of the boys of his age and had a dashing, outgoing personality even as a child, as well as a keen sense of adventure -- he loved tramping through forests, playing soldier, and imagining himself in the kinds of exploits that he'd heard about concerning his father. He was also very sensitive to the treatment that his father had received at the hands of his captors and also from the emperor after his release; from the time Dumas was old enough to think, he not only had a passionate yearning for justice, but a keen sense of the importance of righting the wrongs around him. His best known books would deal with these themes, and also with disloyalty and abandonment, soldierly comradery, and personal honor and its redemption.

The family's situation improved somewhat as those still loyal to the late general or to his wife's family quietly interceded on their behalf. When he grew a little older, Dumas turned down the chance to take his grandfather's royal name and some part of his property, believing that it would be the height of disloyalty to his father and everything that Thomas-Alexandre had stood, lived, and worked for, were he to become a Davy de la Pailleterie rather than a Dumas. They survived, in part, with help from his mother's acquisition of a license to sell tobacco, and one of their customers was Auguste Lafarge, who was to befriend Dumas and introduce him to the world of poetry, theater, literature, and Parisian society. Dumas worked as a clerk as an older teenager and young man, but his heart lay with equestrian skills, with which he was prodigiously blessed, and with fantasies of adventure and acts of derring-do. He learned through his grandfather's legacy something about royal life in the decades before the revolution; from teachers, friends and acquaintances, he became skilled in poetry and writing, and from the young men and women drawn by his startlingly exotic good looks, he acquired the social skills that the family's reduced circumstances had denied him the opportunity to learn earlier in life. The women couldn't resist his charm, and Dumas supposedly left a string of would-be (and consummated) conquests behind him before his mid-twenties; he could charm the younger nobles whom he occasionally encountered socially, yet he had a wild, free spirit that almost made him seem even more the rustic that his upbringing and woodland trampings suggested.

Dumas' first theatrical works, written in conjunction with Adolphe de Leuven, dated from 1820 and 1821. With his first success on stage in 1829, the historical drama Henri III et sa cour, he started becoming widely known. He was involved with the Revolution of 1830, but it was primarily as an author that Dumas was recognized, through works such as Anthony (1831) and La Tour de Nesle (1832). As a novelist, Dumas didn't come fully into his own until 1844, with the publication of The Three Musketeers. One can safely say that the character of D'Artagnan was loosely based on his own background and family history, and perhaps his father's exploits as well, while his perceptions of friendship and loyalty as expressed in that book and its sequels, Twenty Years After (1845) and The Vicomte de Bragelonne (1848-1850), seemed to stem from the loyalties that people felt toward his father. The elder Dumas was clearly one of the key models for the character of Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo (1845), which was not only successful as a book (with an English translation following a year later), but also as a play, adapted by Charles Fechter in 1848, with James O'Neill famously playing the lead. Those became Dumas' most popular works and they made him a wealthy man, though they were strongly disliked by literary critics of the day who, in their turn, loved his plays. He, thus, had a two-tiered career, loved by the public on several continents for one body of work and adored by the critics and intelligentsia at home for another.

Dumas' total output included hundreds of plays, novels, and stories, including rewrites of other authors' works (copyright was a very different matter in those days), among them The Nutcracker, based on a story by E.T.A. Hoffman, which he turned into a fairy tale that Tchaikovsky subsequently used as the source for his ballet of the same name. Outside of France, however, it was as an author of adventure stories that Dumas became one of the best known writers in the world after 1844. He never made any claims for the accuracy of the historical details in his stories, but they have become so well-known through retellings and screen adaptations over the ensuing 160 years, that most people's perceptions of such a genuine historical figure as Cardinal Richelieu are rooted in Dumas' The Three Musketeers, rather than in any actual biography of the 17th century nobleman and cleric. Richelieu has, thus, been consigned to that same odd corner of popular culture "villainy" occupied by such figures as England's Prince John and the composer Antonio Salieri, as represented, respectively, in the Robin Hood legends and the film Amadeus.

Dumas' books were also an influence on countless authors around the world, including Mark Twain, who emulated Dumas' brand of fiction in The Prince and the Pauper and japed at it in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. More than 130 years after the author's death, phrases such as "One for all and all for one" are still almost universally understood and recognized from his stories of the Musketeers, thanks to numerous screen adaptations of their exploits. In the 1890s, more than 20 years after his death, Dumas' only real rival appeared on the literary scene in the guise of Anthony Hope, another author of adventure novels and plays, but this only served to extend the Dumas legacy.

Dumas died in 1870, long before the advent of motion pictures, but his fiction has served as the official basis for over 100 screen adaptations from 1898 through 2002 and beyond. Actors from Douglas Fairbanks Sr. to Leonardo DiCaprio have starred in film versions of his work. Among the dozens of movies based on Dumas' books, notable productions include Fred Niblo's 1921 silent version of The Three Musketeers, which established Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as a hero in costume adventure films; Edward Small's 1934 production of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Robert Donat; the 1939 version of The Man in the Iron Mask, produced by Small and directed by James Whale, starring Louis Hayward; Edgar G. Ulmer's 1946 film The Wife of Monte Cristo, starring Lenore Aubert and Martin Kosleck, which may be the most interesting of the group for its mix of offbeat casting, rich portrayals, deep passion, moody atmosphere, and breezy pacing; George Sidney's 1948 MGM version (in Technicolor) of The Three Musketeers, starring Gene Kelly; RKO's 1951 At Sword's Point, directed by Lewis Allen, starring Cornel Wilde and Maureen O'Hara; and Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1975). The Small production of 1934, Ulmer's movie, and the two Lester films probably best captured the essence of the books, while the Lester movies veered a little too broadly between slapstick comedy and serious drama. Also worth seeing, as a burlesque of Dumas' work, is Bud Yorkin's Start the Revolution Without Me, which managed to parody every previous version of The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, etc. Dumas' son, also named Alexandre and usually referred to as Alexandre Dumas (fils) (1824-1895), was also a celebrated novelist and dramatist of the 19th century. His work, however, has been less popular than that of his father in the century since his death. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

法国作家大仲马(1802—1870)自称是“滔滔不绝的”作家,自诩为“有趣的逗趣者”。他确实文思泉涌,下笔千言,文不加点,一挥而就,是个罕见的多产作家,一生写了八十八个剧本,小说作品的数量多得惊人,有五百多卷。 大仲马先是作为剧作家登上文坛,而后又作为小说家活跃在文坛上。他的剧本主要有:《亨利三世和他的宫廷》(1829)、《安东尼》(1831)、《查里七世》(1831)、《拿破仑•波拿巴》(1831)、《奈斯尔之塔》(1832)。他的小说主要有:《三剑客》(1844)、《二十年后》(1845)、《布拉日隆子爵》(1848—1850)、《玛尔戈王后》(1845)、《蒙梭罗夫人》(1846)、《四十五卫士》(1848)、《基督山伯爵》(1844—1845)、《黑郁金香》(1850)、《约瑟夫•巴尔萨摩》(1846—1848)、《王后的项链》(1849—1850)、《昂热•皮图》(1851)、《沙尔尼伯爵夫人》(1852—1855)等。

平生经历：大仲马这个人一生只活了六十八岁，可是他的生活之多彩多姿，抵得过一般人的好几辈子。

他的祖父是一个浪荡贵族，在一七六○年时跑到圣多明哥岛去定居，在那裏和一个女黑奴生了大仲马的父亲（仲马是这黑祖母的姓）。

大仲马的父亲在一七八○年与其父回到法国，从大革命初期起便在军队中表现出色，升迁不断，后来娶了维列寇得黑当地一个小旅馆主人的女儿，生下了大仲马。

仲马将军是一个共和主义者，他在革命时期见人用断头台杀人，叹气之余闭窗不忍看，群众都聚在他家的窗台下，送他人道主义者的绰号讥讽他；拿破仑崛起了，到处征讨，仲马将军不同意他的帝国主义，被拿破仑看成了眼中钉，阴谋下狱，在意大利过了两年牢狱生涯，后来仅以身免。回到法国后，一个英雄将军，变成非民非军，连该得的退休金和薪水都分文得不到。过世的时候，大仲马才四岁。

与母亲相依为命的孤儿大仲马，到了十三岁还没念过什麼书，当时的学校都教拉丁文，有一次，一个英国军官借宿在他的家中，想用拉丁文和他沟通，拉丁文一字不识的大仲马还以为那是英文。

大仲马的童年，很像他自己的作品《大野心家》裏的寂柏，除了没念过多少书外，还常常在森林裏游荡，一方面是家穷常饿肚子，森林裏有野鸟饱腹；另一方面是母亲不肯让他重蹈老子覆辙，逼他学小提琴。他在林中治游，到了日落才回家，不但免了练琴之苦，还省了练琴时点蜡烛照谱的花费。后来他的提琴老师见他实在志不在此，哭著请他的母亲不必再浪费心思，这才作罢。不过他写得一手漂亮的字，母亲后来为他找了一个在公证人事务所当见习生的差。

大仲马一生的转捩点，在於认识了一个叫阿道夫的朋友。这个朋友是瑞典贵族之子，父亲也是个英雄人物，因为同情革命，参与了谋杀国王的事件，被流放在法国。大仲马经由他的带领，初窥文学殿堂。阿道夫是个文艺青年，他带著大仲马认识戏剧，也将拉马丁等人的现代诗，介绍给对文学几乎一无所知的大仲马，使他立志要成为一个作家。

二十岁时，大仲马拿了打弹子赢来的九十块法郎，到巴黎打天下。他父亲的旧日袍泽那时都已是高官将领，附从皇帝拿破仑，复辟后顺理成章变成了保王党，没有人要对这个共和将军的儿子一伸援手。幸好还有一个富华将军看在他父亲的面上，见他写得一手漂亮的字，推荐他到奥尔
良公爵——也就是后来的路易‧菲利浦国王——府裏当文书，才算衣食无虑。

大仲马对莎士比亚、席勒、瓦特、史考脱很崇拜，最初以写剧本起家。第一出剧本《亨利三世与其宫廷》敲响浪漫主义剧场的第一飨胜利之钟，令他在文学界崭露头角。

后来他开始写小说，一八四四年的《基度山恩仇记》使得他家喻户晓，从此声名不坠。他最著名的还有三剑客三部曲、瓦洛朝三部曲（即《玛歌王后》系列）、大革命前后四部曲（即《大野心家》系列）。全部作品包括剧本二十五出，小说、游记、回忆录等等，总计二百七十余种。

大仲马不但写小说，写剧本，写游记，还办报纸。他办报纸是要挑衅当时的检查制度。人家禁他的文章，报纸不敢登，他就自己办一份；别人不敢执笔，他就一切自己来，就这样撑了好几年。他有一次询问拉马丁对他的报纸有什麼意见，拉马丁写信回答他说：「你问我对你的报纸有何意见，我只对人间的事物有意见，对奇迹却没有，我对你的意见是一个惊叹号……你永远出人意表。」

雨果则说：「……你宛如伏尔泰再世。在这受尽耻辱噤若寒蝉的法兰西，你是我们最大的安慰。」

大仲马一生精力过人，作品源源不断，一直到死前几个月都还在写作，他的作品就像他的人，丰富、慷慨、豪迈，充满了惊奇和趣味。

一本大仲马的传记这麼说：

「如果您只要读一本大仲马的小说，请读《三剑客》；如果您有时间读三本，那麼请加上《基督山恩仇记》和《玛歌王后》；如果您要读五本，再加上《二十年后》（《续侠隐记》）和《蒙梭罗夫人》；如果您选择十册大仲马的作品，那麼便再加上《大野心家》，《四十五卫士》，《我的回忆录》，《安东尼》和《波治伦子爵》。如果这十本书您都看过了，那麼您铁定已经上了瘾，毋需我们推荐您阅读其他的作品了……」