Coordinates	21°50′52″N105°45′28″N
Name	Raoul Bott
Birth date	September 24, 1923
Birth place	Budapest, Hungary
Death date	December 20, 2005
Death place	San Diego, California
Residence	SlovakiaUnited StatesCanada
Nationality	Hungarian American
Fields	Mathematics
Workplaces	University of Michigan in Ann ArborHarvard University
Alma mater	McGill UniversityCarnegie Mellon University
Doctoral advisor	Richard Duffin
Doctoral students	Harold EdwardsRobert MacPhersonDaniel QuillenStephen Smale
Awards	Wolf Prize (2000)Veblen Prize (1964) }}

Raoul Bott, FRS (September 24, 1923 – December 20, 2005) was a Hungarian mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense. He is best known for his Bott periodicity theorem, the Morse–Bott functions which he used in this context, and the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem.

Career

Bott was born in Budapest, Hungary, grew up in Slovakia and spent his working life in the United States. His family emigrated to Canada in 1938, and subsequently he served in the Canadian Army in Europe during World War II. He later went to college at McGill University in Montreal, where he studied electrical engineering. He then earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1949. His thesis, titled ''Electrical Network Theory'', was written under the direction of Richard Duffin. Afterward, he began teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1959 to 1999, and received the Wolf Prize in 2000. In 2005, he was elected an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He died in San Diego after a battle with cancer.

Initially he worked on the theory of electrical circuits (Bott-Duffin theorem from 1949), then switched to pure mathematics.

He studied the homotopy theory of Lie groups, using methods from Morse theory, leading to the Bott periodicity theorem (1956). In the course of this work, he introduced Morse–Bott functions, an important generalization of Morse functions.

This led to his role as collaborator over many years with Michael Atiyah, initially via the part played by periodicity in K-theory. Bott made important contributions towards the index theorem, especially in formulating related fixed-point theorems, in particular the so-called 'Woods Hole fixed-point theorem', a combination of the Riemann–Roch theorem and Lefschetz fixed-point theorem (it is named after Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the site of a conference at which collective discussion formulated it). The major Atiyah–Bott papers on what is now the Atiyah–Bott fixed-point theorem were written in the years up to 1968; they collaborated further in recovering in contemporary language results of Ivan Petrovsky on hyperbolic partial differential equations, prompted by Lars Gårding. In the 1980s, Atiyah and Bott investigated gauge theory, using the Yang–Mills equations on a Riemann surface to obtain topological information about the moduli spaces of stable bundles on Riemann surfaces.

He is also well-known in connection with the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem on representation theory of Lie groups via holomorphic sheaves and their cohomology groups; and for work on foliations.

Awards

In 1964, he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry by the American Mathematical Society. In 1983 he was awarded the Jeffery–Williams Prize by the Canadian Mathematical Society. In 1987, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Students

Bott had 20 Ph.D. students, including Stephen Smale, Lawrence Conlon, Daniel Quillen, Peter Landweber, Robert MacPherson, Robert Brooks, Robin Forman and Kevin Corlette.

Biography

Childhood

His mother and aunts spoke Hungarian. His Czech stepfather did not, so the principal language at home was German. He had an English governess from a young age, so he also spoke perfect English (and retained a very faint English accent throughout his life). The language of his high school was Slovak. Despite all this Bott claimed a distaste for learning languages.

Publications

Bott, Raoul Raoul Bott: collected papers. Vol. 4. Mathematics related to physics. Edited by Robert D. MacPherson. Contemporary Mathematicians. Birkhäuser Boston, Inc., Boston, MA, 1995. xx+485 pp. ISBN 0-8176-3648-X Bott, Raoul Raoul Bott: collected papers. Vol. 3. Foliations. Edited by Robert D. MacPherson. Contemporary Mathematicians. Birkhäuser Boston, Inc., Boston, MA, 1995. xxxii+610 pp. ISBN 0-8176-3647-1 Bott, Raoul Raoul Bott: collected papers. Vol. 2. Differential operators. Edited by Robert D. MacPherson. Contemporary Mathematicians. Birkhäuser Boston, Inc., Boston, MA, 1994. xxxiv+802 pp. ISBN 0-8176-3646-3 Bott, Raoul Raoul Bott: collected papers. Vol. 1. Topology and Lie groups. Edited by Robert D. MacPherson. Contemporary Mathematicians. Birkhäuser Boston, Inc., Boston, MA, 1994. xii+584 pp. ISBN 0-8176-3613-7 Bott, Raoul; Tu, Loring W. Differential forms in algebraic topology. Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 82. Springer-Verlag, New York-Berlin, 1982. xiv+331 pp. ISBN 0-387-90613-4 Bott, Raoul Lectures on K(X). Mathematics Lecture Note Series W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York-Amsterdam 1969 x+203 pp.

References

External links

Commemorative website at Harvard Math Department

"The Life and Works of Raoul Bott", by Loring Tu.

"Raoul Bott, an Innovator in Mathematics, Dies at 82", ''The New York Times'', January 8, 2006.

Category:1923 births Category:2005 deaths Category:20th-century mathematicians Category:American mathematicians Category:Hungarian mathematicians Category:Topologists Category:Geometers Category:Harvard University faculty Category:University of Michigan faculty Category:McGill University alumni Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni Category:Foreign Members of the Royal Society Category:National Medal of Science laureates Category:Wolf Prize in Mathematics laureates Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences Category:Cancer deaths in California

ca:Raoul Bott de:Raoul Bott es:Raoul Bott fr:Raoul Bott ko:라울 보트 it:Raoul Bott ht:Raoul Bott ja:ラウル・ボット pl:Raoul Bott pt:Raoul Bott ru:Ботт, Рауль sk:Raoul Bott fi:Raoul Bott vi:Raoul Bott zh:拉乌尔·博特

Coordinates	21°50′52″N105°45′28″N
name	Jane Austen
birth date	December 16, 1775
birth place	Steventon Rectory, Hampshire
death date	July 18, 1817
death place	Winchester, Hampshire
resting place	Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire
period	1787 to 1809-1811
genre	Romance
notableworks	Pride and PrejudiceSense and Sensibility
signature	Jane Austen signature from her will.svg|200px|Signature from Austen's 1817 will.
portaldisp	y }}

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about 35 years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of ''Sense and Sensibility'' (1811), ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813), ''Mansfield Park'' (1814) and ''Emma'' (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, ''Northanger Abbey'' and ''Persuasion'', both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled ''Sanditon'', but died before completing it.

Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century realism. Her plots, though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew's ''A Memoir of Jane Austen'' introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become widely accepted in academia as a great English writer. The second half of the 20th century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship and the emergence of a Janeite fan culture.

Biography

Biographical information concerning Jane Austen is "famously scarce", according to one biographer. Only some personal and family letters remain (by one estimate only 160 out of Austen's 3,000 letters are extant), and her sister Cassandra (to whom most of the letters were originally addressed) burned "the greater part" of the ones she kept and censored those she did not destroy. Other letters were destroyed by the heirs of Admiral Francis Austen, Jane's brother. Most of the biographical material produced for fifty years after Austen's death was written by her relatives and reflects the family's biases in favour of "good quiet Aunt Jane". Scholars have unearthed little information since.

Family

Austen's parents, George Austen (1731–1805), and his wife Cassandra (1739–1827), were members of substantial gentry families. George was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers, which had risen through the professions to the lower ranks of the landed gentry. Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leigh family; they married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath. From 1765 until 1801, that is, for much of Jane's life, George Austen served as the rector of the Anglican parishes at Steventon, Hampshire and a nearby village. From 1773 until 1796, he supplemented this income by farming and by teaching three or four boys at a time who boarded at his home.

Austen's immediate family was large: six brothers—James (1765–1819), George (1766–1838), Edward (1767–1852), Henry Thomas (1771–1850), Francis William (Frank) (1774–1865), Charles John (1779–1852)—and one sister, Cassandra Elizabeth (Steventon, Hampshire, 9 January 1773–1845), who, like Jane, died unmarried. Cassandra Elizabeth was Austen's closest friend and confidante throughout her life. Of her brothers, Austen felt closest to Henry, who became a banker and, after his bank failed, an Anglican clergyman. Henry was also his sister's literary agent. His large circle of friends and acquaintances in London included bankers, merchants, publishers, painters, and actors: he provided Austen with a view of social worlds not normally visible from a small parish in rural Hampshire. George was sent to live with a local family at a young age because, as Austen biographer Le Faye describes it, he was "mentally abnormal and subject to fits". He may also have been deaf and mute.

Early life and education

Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon rectory and publicly christened on 5 April 1776. After a few months at home, her mother placed Austen with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby, who nursed and raised Austen for a year or eighteen months. In 1783, according to family tradition, Jane and Cassandra were sent to Oxford to be educated by Mrs. Ann Cawley and they moved with her to Southampton later in the year. Both girls caught typhus and Jane nearly died. Austen was subsequently educated at home, until leaving for boarding school with her sister Cassandra early in 1785. The school curriculum probably included some French, spelling, needlework, dancing and music and, perhaps, drama. By December 1786, Jane and Cassandra had returned home because the Austens could not afford to send both of their daughters to school.

Austen acquired the remainder of her education by reading books, guided by her father and her brothers James and Henry. George Austen apparently gave his daughters unfettered access to his large and varied library, was tolerant of Austen's sometimes risqué experiments in writing, and provided both sisters with expensive paper and other materials for their writing and drawing. According to Park Honan, a biographer of Austen, life in the Austen home was lived in "an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere" where the ideas of those with whom the Austens might disagree politically or socially were considered and discussed. After returning from school in 1786, Austen "never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment".

Private theatricals were also a part of Austen's education. From when she was seven until she was thirteen, the family and close friends staged a series of plays, including Richard Sheridan's ''The Rivals'' (1775) and David Garrick's ''Bon Ton''. While the details are unknown, Austen would certainly have joined in these activities, as a spectator at first and as a participant when she was older. Most of the plays were comedies, which suggests one way in which Austen's comedic and satirical gifts were cultivated.

Juvenilia

Perhaps as early as 1787, Austen began to write poems, stories, and plays for her own and her family's amusement. Austen later compiled "fair copies" of 29 of these early works into three bound notebooks, now referred to as the ''Juvenilia'', containing pieces originally written between 1787 and 1793. There is manuscript evidence that Austen continued to work on these pieces as late as the period 1809–11, and that her niece and nephew, Anna and James Edward Austen, made further additions as late as 1814. Among these works are a satirical novel in letters titled ''Love and Freindship'' [''sic''], in which she mocked popular novels of sensibility, and ''The History of England'', a manuscript of 34 pages accompanied by 13 watercolour miniatures by her sister Cassandra.

Austen's ''History'' parodied popular historical writing, particularly Oliver Goldsmith's ''History of England'' (1764). Austen wrote, for example: "Henry the 4th ascended the throne of England much to his own satisfaction in the year 1399, after having prevailed on his cousin & predecessor Richard the 2nd, to resign it to him, & to retire for the rest of his Life to Pomfret Castle, where he happened to be murdered." Austen's ''Juvenilia'' are often, according to scholar Richard Jenkyns, "boisterous" and "anarchic"; he compares them to the work of 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne and the 20th century comedy group Monty Python.

Adulthood

As Austen grew into adulthood, she continued to live at her parents' home, carrying out those activities normal for women of her age and social standing: she practised the fortepiano, assisted her sister and mother with supervising servants, and attended female relatives during childbirth and older relatives on their deathbeds. She sent short pieces of writing to her newborn nieces Fanny Catherine and Jane Anna Elizabeth. Austen was particularly proud of her accomplishments as a seamstress. She also attended church regularly, socialized frequently with friends and neighbours, and read novels—often of her own composition—aloud with her family in the evenings. Socializing with the neighbours often meant dancing, either impromptu in someone's home after supper or at the balls held regularly at the assembly rooms in the town hall. Her brother Henry later said that "Jane was fond of dancing, and excelled in it".

In 1793, Austen began and then abandoned a short play, later entitled ''Sir Charles Grandison or the happy Man, a comedy in 6 acts'', which she returned to and completed around 1800. This was a short parody of various school textbook abridgments of Austen's favourite contemporary novel, ''The History of Sir Charles Grandison'' (1753), by Samuel Richardson. Honan speculates that at some point not long after writing ''Love and Freindship'' [sic] in 1789, Austen decided to "write for profit, to make stories her central effort", that is, to become a professional writer. Whenever she made that decision, beginning in about 1793, Austen began to write longer, more sophisticated works. It is unlike any of Austen's other works. Austen biographer Claire Tomalin describes the heroine of the novella as a sexual predator who uses her intelligence and charm to manipulate, betray, and abuse her victims, whether lovers, friends or family. Tomalin writes: "Told in letters, it is as neatly plotted as a play, and as cynical in tone as any of the most outrageous of the Restoration dramatists who may have provided some of her inspiration....It stands alone in Austen's work as a study of an adult woman whose intelligence and force of character are greater than those of anyone she encounters."

Early novels

After finishing ''Lady Susan'', Austen attempted her first full-length novel—''Elinor and Marianne''. Her sister Cassandra later remembered that it was read to the family "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published in 1811 as ''Sense and Sensibility''.

When Austen was twenty, Tom Lefroy, a nephew of neighbours, visited Steventon from December 1795 to January 1796. He had just finished a university degree and was moving to London to train as a barrister. Lefroy and Austen would have been introduced at a ball or other neighbourhood social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: "I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together." The Lefroy family intervened and sent him away at the end of January. Marriage was impractical, as both Lefroy and Austen must have known. Neither had any money, and he was dependent on a great-uncle in Ireland to finance his education and establish his legal career. If Tom Lefroy later visited Hampshire, he was carefully kept away from the Austens, and Jane Austen never saw him again.

Austen began work on a second novel, ''First Impressions'', in 1796. She completed the initial draft in August 1797 when she was only 21 (it later became ''Pride and Prejudice''); as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite". At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish one of her novels. In November 1797, George Austen wrote to Thomas Cadell, an established publisher in London, to ask if he would consider publishing "a Manuscript Novel, comprised in three Vols. about the length of Miss Burney's Evelina" (''First Impressions'') at the author's financial risk. Cadell quickly returned Mr. Austen's letter, marked "Declined by Return of Post". Austen may not have known of her father's efforts. Following the completion of ''First Impressions'', Austen returned to ''Elinor and Marianne'' and from November 1797 until mid-1798, revised it heavily; she eliminated the epistolary format in favour of third-person narration and produced something close to ''Sense and Sensibility''.

During the middle of 1798, after finishing revisions of ''Elinor and Marianne'', Austen began writing a third novel with the working title ''Susan''—later ''Northanger Abbey''—a satire on the popular Gothic novel. Austen completed her work about a year later. In early 1803, Henry Austen offered ''Susan'' to Benjamin Crosby, a London publisher, who paid £10 for the copyright. Crosby promised early publication and went so far as to advertise the book publicly as being "in the press", but did nothing more. The manuscript remained in Crosby's hands, unpublished, until Austen repurchased the copyright from him in 1816.

Bath and Southampton

In December 1800, Mr Austen unexpectedly announced his decision to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath. While retirement and travel were good for the elder Austens, Jane Austen was shocked to be told she was moving from the only home she had ever known. An indication of Austen's state of mind is her lack of productivity as a writer during the time she lived at Bath. She was able to make some revisions to ''Susan'', and she began and then abandoned a new novel, ''The Watsons'', but there was nothing like the productivity of the years 1795–99. Tomalin suggests this reflects a deep depression disabling her as a writer, but Honan disagrees, arguing Austen wrote or revised her manuscripts throughout her creative life, except for a few months after her father died.

In December 1802, Austen received her only proposal of marriage. She and her sister visited Alethea and Catherine Bigg, old friends who lived near Basingstoke. Their younger brother, Harris Bigg-Wither, had recently finished his education at Oxford and was also at home. Bigg-Wither proposed and Austen accepted. As described by Caroline Austen, Jane's niece, and Reginald Bigg-Wither, a descendant, Harris was not attractive—he was a large, plain-looking man who spoke little, stuttered when he did speak, was aggressive in conversation, and almost completely tactless. However, Austen had known him since both were young and the marriage offered many practical advantages to Austen and her family. He was the heir to extensive family estates located in the area where the sisters had grown up. With these resources, Austen could provide her parents a comfortable old age, give Cassandra a permanent home and, perhaps, assist her brothers in their careers. By the next morning, Austen realised she had made a mistake and withdrew her acceptance. No contemporary letters or diaries describe how Austen felt about this proposal. In 1814, Austen wrote a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, who had asked for advice about a serious relationship, telling her that "having written so much on one side of the question, I shall now turn around & entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection".

In 1804, while living in Bath, Austen started but did not complete a new novel, ''The Watsons''. The story centres on an invalid clergyman with little money and his four unmarried daughters. Sutherland describes the novel as "a study in the harsh economic realities of dependent women's lives". Honan suggests, and Tomalin agrees, that Austen chose to stop work on the novel after her father died on 21 January 1805 and her personal circumstances resembled those of her characters too closely for her comfort.

Mr Austen's final illness had struck suddenly, leaving him, as Austen reported to her brother Francis, "quite insensible of his own state", and he died quickly. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother were left in a precarious financial situation. Edward, James, Henry, and Francis Austen pledged to make annual contributions to support their mother and sisters. For the next four years, the family's living arrangements reflected their financial insecurity. They lived part of the time in rented quarters in Bath and then, beginning in 1806, in Southampton, where they shared a house with Frank Austen and his new wife. A large part of this time they spent visiting various branches of the family.

On 5 April 1809, about three months before the family's move to Chawton, Austen wrote an angry letter to Richard Crosby, offering him a new manuscript of ''Susan'' if that was needed to secure immediate publication of the novel, and otherwise requesting the return of the original so she could find another publisher. Crosby replied he had not agreed to publish the book by any particular time, or at all, and that Austen could repurchase the manuscript for the £10 he had paid her and find another publisher. However, Austen did not have the resources to repurchase the book.

Chawton

Around early 1809, Austen's brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life—the use of a large cottage in Chawton village that was part of Edward's nearby estate, Chawton House. Jane, Cassandra, and their mother moved into Chawton cottage on 7 July 1809. In Chawton, life was quieter than it had been since the family's move to Bath in 1800. The Austens did not socialise with the neighbouring gentry and entertained only when family visited. Austen's niece Anna described the Austen family's life in Chawton: "It was a very quiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write." Austen wrote almost daily, but privately, and seems to have been relieved of some household responsibilities to give her more opportunity to write. In this setting, she was able to be productive as a writer once more.

Published author

During her time at Chawton, Jane Austen successfully published four novels, which were generally well-received. Through her brother Henry, the publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish ''Sense and Sensibility'', which appeared in October 1811. Reviews were favourable and the novel became fashionable among opinion-makers; the edition sold out by mid-1813. Austen's earnings from ''Sense and Sensibility'' provided her with some financial and psychological independence. Egerton then published ''Pride and Prejudice'', a revision of ''First Impressions'', in January 1813. He advertised the book widely and it was an immediate success, garnering three favourable reviews and selling well. By October 1813, Egerton was able to begin selling a second edition. ''Mansfield Park'' was published by Egerton in May 1814. While ''Mansfield Park'' was ignored by reviewers, it was a great success with the public. All copies were sold within six months, and Austen's earnings on this novel were larger than for any of her other novels.

Austen learned that the Prince Regent admired her novels and kept a set at each of his residences. In November 1815, the Prince Regent's librarian invited Austen to visit the Prince's London residence and hinted Austen should dedicate the forthcoming ''Emma'' to the Prince. Though Austen disliked the Prince, she could scarcely refuse the request. She later wrote ''Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters'', a satiric outline of the "perfect novel" based on the librarian's many suggestions for a future Austen novel.

In mid-1815, Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published ''Emma'' in December 1815 and a second edition of ''Mansfield Park'' in February 1816. ''Emma'' sold well but the new edition of ''Mansfield Park'' did not, and this failure offset most of the profits Austen earned on ''Emma''. These were the last of Austen's novels to be published during her lifetime.

While Murray prepared ''Emma'' for publication, Austen began to write a new novel she titled ''The Elliots'', later published as ''Persuasion''. She completed her first draft in July 1816. In addition, shortly after the publication of ''Emma'', Henry Austen repurchased the copyright for ''Susan'' from Crosby. Austen was forced to postpone publishing either of these completed novels by family financial troubles. Henry Austen's bank failed in March 1816, depriving him of all of his assets, leaving him deeply in debt and losing Edward, James, and Frank Austen large sums. Henry and Frank could no longer afford the contributions they had made to support their mother and sisters.

Illness and death

Early in 1816, Jane Austen began to feel unwell. She ignored her illness at first and continued to work and to participate in the usual round of family activities. By the middle of that year, her decline was unmistakable to Austen and to her family, and Austen's physical condition began a long, slow, and irregular deterioration culminating in her death the following year. The majority of Austen biographers rely on Dr. Vincent Cope's tentative 1964 retrospective diagnosis and list her cause of death as Addison's disease. However, her final illness has also been described as Hodgkin's lymphoma. Recent work by Katherine White of Britain's Addison’s Disease Self Help Group suggests that Austen likely died of bovine tuberculosis, a disease (now) commonly associated with drinking unpasteurized milk. One contributing factor or cause of her death, discovered by Linda Robinson Walker and described in the Winter 2010 issue of Persuasions on-line, might be Brill-Zinsser disease, a recurrent form of typhus, which she had as a child. Brill-Zinsser disease is to typhus as shingles is to chicken pox; when a victim of typhus endures stress, malnutrition or another infection, typhus can recur as Brill-Zinsser.

Austen continued to work in spite of her illness. She became dissatisfied with the ending of ''The Elliots'' and rewrote the final two chapters, finishing them on 6 August 1816. In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel she called ''The Brothers'', later titled ''Sanditon'' upon its first publication in 1925, and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably because her illness prevented her from continuing. Austen made light of her condition to others, describing it as "Bile" and rheumatism, but as her disease progressed she experienced increasing difficulty walking or finding the energy for other activities. By mid-April, Austen was confined to her bed. In May, their brother Henry escorted Jane and Cassandra to Winchester for medical treatment. Austen died in Winchester on 18 July 1817, at the age of 41. Through his clerical connections, Henry arranged for his sister to be buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph composed by her brother James praises Austen's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation, mentions the "extraordinary endowments of her mind", but does not explicitly mention her achievements as a writer.

Posthumous publication

After Austen's death, Cassandra and Henry Austen arranged with Murray for the publication of ''Persuasion'' and ''Northanger Abbey'' as a set in December 1817. Henry Austen contributed a ''Biographical Note'' which for the first time identified his sister as the author of the novels. Tomalin describes it as "a loving and polished eulogy". Sales were good for a year—only 321 copies remained unsold at the end of 1818—and then declined. Murray disposed of the remaining copies in 1820, and Austen's novels remained out of print for twelve years. In 1832, publisher Richard Bentley purchased the remaining copyrights to all of Austen's novels and, beginning in either December 1832 or January 1833, published them in five illustrated volumes as part of his ''Standard Novels'' series. In October 1833, Bentley published the first collected edition of Austen's works. Since then, Austen's novels have been continuously in print.

Reception

Contemporary responses

Austen's works brought her little personal renown because they were published anonymously. Although her novels quickly became fashionable among opinion-makers, such as Princess Charlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, they received only a few published reviews. Most of the reviews were short and on balance favourable, although superficial and cautious. They most often focused on the moral lessons of the novels. Sir Walter Scott, a leading novelist of the day, contributed one of them, anonymously. Using the review as a platform from which to defend the then disreputable genre of the novel, he praised Austen's realism. The other important early review of Austen's works was published by Richard Whately in 1821. He drew favourable comparisons between Austen and such acknowledged greats as Homer and Shakespeare, praising the dramatic qualities of her narrative. Whately and Scott set the tone for almost all subsequent 19th-century Austen criticism.

Nineteenth century

Because Austen's novels failed to conform to Romantic and Victorian expectations that "powerful emotion [be] authenticated by an egregious display of sound and colour in the writing", 19th-century critics and audiences generally preferred the works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Though Austen's novels were republished in Britain beginning in the 1830s and remained steady sellers, they were not bestsellers.

Austen had many admiring readers in the 19th century who considered themselves part of a literary elite: they viewed their appreciation of Austen's works as a mark of their cultural taste. Philosopher and literary critic George Henry Lewes expressed this viewpoint in a series of enthusiastic articles published in the 1840s and 1850s. This theme continued later in the century with novelist Henry James, who referred to Austen several times with approval and on one occasion ranked her with Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Henry Fielding as among "the fine painters of life".

The publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh's ''A Memoir of Jane Austen'' in 1869 introduced Austen to a wider public as "dear aunt Jane", the respectable maiden aunt. Publication of the ''Memoir'' spurred the reissue of Austen's novels—the first popular editions were released in 1883 and fancy illustrated editions and collectors' sets quickly followed. Author and critic Leslie Stephen described the popular mania that started to develop for Austen in the 1880s as "Austenolatry". Around the turn of the century, members of the literary elite reacted against the popularization of Austen. They referred to themselves as ''Janeites'' in order to distinguish themselves from the masses who did not properly understand her works. For example, James responded negatively to what he described as "a beguiled infatuation" with Austen, a rising tide of public interest that exceeded Austen's "intrinsic merit and interest".

During the last quarter of the 19th century, the first books of criticism on Austen were published. In fact, after the publication of the ''Memoir'', more criticism was published on Austen in two years than had appeared in the previous fifty.

Twentieth century and beyond

Several important works paved the way for Austen's novels to become a focus of academic study. The first important milestone was a 1911 essay by Oxford Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley, which is "generally regarded as the starting-point for the serious academic approach to Jane Austen". In it, he established the groupings of Austen's "early" and "late" novels, which are still used by scholars today. The second was R. W. Chapman's 1923 edition of Austen's collected works. Not only was it the first scholarly edition of Austen's works, it was also the first scholarly edition of any English novelist. The Chapman text has remained the basis for all subsequent published editions of Austen's works. With the publication in 1939 of Mary Lascelles's ''Jane Austen and Her Art'', the academic study of Austen took hold. Lascelles's innovative work included an analysis of the books Jane Austen read and the effect of her reading on her work, an extended analysis of Austen's style, and her "narrative art". At the time, concern arose over the fact that academics were taking over Austen criticism and it was becoming increasingly esoteric—a debate that has continued to the beginning of the 21st century. In a spurt of revisionist views in the 1940s, scholars approached Austen more sceptically and argued that she was a subversive writer. These revisionist views, together with F. R. Leavis's and Ian Watt's pronouncement that Austen was one of the great writers of English fiction, did much to cement Austen's reputation amongst academics. They agreed that she "combined [Henry Fielding's and Samuel Richardson's] qualities of interiority and irony, realism and satire to form an author superior to both". The period since World War II has seen more scholarship on Austen using a diversity of critical approaches, including feminist theory, and perhaps most controversially, postcolonial theory. However, the continuing disconnection between the popular appreciation of Austen, particularly by modern Janeites, and the academic appreciation of Austen has widened considerably. Jane Austen was the favourite novelist of political philosopher Leo Strauss.

Sequels, prequels, and adaptations of almost every sort have been based on the novels of Jane Austen, from soft-core pornography to fantasy. Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, Austen family members published conclusions to her incomplete novels, and by 2000 there were over 100 printed adaptations. The first film adaptation was the 1940 MGM production of ''Pride and Prejudice'' starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. BBC television dramatisations, which were first produced in the 1970s, attempted to adhere meticulously to Austen's plots, characterisations, and settings. In 1995 a great wave of Austen adaptations began to appear, with Ang Lee's film of ''Sense and Sensibility'', for which screenwriter and star Emma Thompson won an Academy Award, and the BBC's immensely popular TV mini-series ''Pride and Prejudice'', starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.

Books and scripts that use the general storyline of Austen's novels but change or otherwise modernise the story also became popular at the end of the 20th century. For example, ''Clueless'' (1995), Amy Heckerling's updated version of ''Emma'', which takes place in Beverly Hills, became a cultural phenomenon and spawned its own television series. In a 2002 vote to determine whom the UK public considers the greatest British people in history, Austen was ranked number 70 in the list of the "''100 Greatest Britons''". In 2003, Austen's ''Pride and Prejudice'' came second in the BBC's Big Read, a national poll to find the "Nation's best-loved book."

List of works

Novels

''Sense and Sensibility'' (1811)

''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813)

''Mansfield Park'' (1814)

''Emma'' (1815)

''Northanger Abbey'' (1818) (posthumous)

''Persuasion'' (1818) (posthumous)

Short fiction

''Lady Susan'' (1794, 1805)

Unfinished fiction

''The Watsons'' (1804)

''Sanditon'' (1817)

Other works ''Sir Charles Grandison'' (1793, 1800)

''Plan of a Novel'' (1815)

Poems

Prayers

Letters

Juvenilia – Volume the First

Frederic & Elfrida

Jack & Alice

Edgar & Emma

Henry and Eliza

The Adventures of Mr. Harley

Sir William Mountague

Memoirs of Mr. Clifford

The Beautifull Cassandra

Amelia Webster

The Visit

The Mystery

The Three Sisters

A beautiful description

The generous Curate

Ode to Pity

Juvenilia – Volume the Second Love and Freindship

Lesley Castle

The History of England

A Collection of Letters

The female philosopher

The first Act of a Comedy

A Letter from a Young Lady

A Tour through Wales

A Tale

Juvenilia – Volume the Third

Evelyn

Catharine, or the Bower

See also

Family tree showing Jane Austen, her parents and her siblings

Family tree showing Jane Austen's siblings and her nephews and nieces

Timeline of Jane Austen

Styles and themes of Jane Austen

Notes

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References

Bibliography

Primary works

Austen, Jane. ''Catharine and Other Writings''. Ed. Margaret Anne Doody and Douglas Murray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-282823-1.

Austen, Jane. ''The History of England''. Ed. David Starkey. Icon Books, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0-06-135195-4.

Le Faye, Deirdre, ed. ''Jane Austen's Letters''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-19-283297-2.

Secondary works

Biographies

Austen, Henry Thomas. "Biographical Notice of the Author". ''Northanger Abbey and Persuasion''. London: John Murray, 1817.

Austen-Leigh, James Edward. ''A Memoir of Jane Austen''. 1926. Ed. R. W. Chapman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.

Austen-Leigh, William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh. ''Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters, A Family Record''. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1913.

Fergus, Jan. ''Jane Austen: A Literary Life''. London: Macmillan, 1991. ISBN 0-333-44701-8.

Honan, Park. ''Jane Austen: A Life''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. ISBN 0-312-01451-1.

Le Faye, Deirdre. ''Jane Austen: A Family Record''. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-53417-8.

Nokes, David. ''Jane Austen: A Life''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 0520216067.

Tomalin, Claire. ''Jane Austen: A Life''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. ISBN 0-679-44628-1.

Essay collections

''A Jane Austen Devotional''. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4003-1953-4.

Alexander, Christine and Juliet McMaster, eds. ''The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-81293-3.

Copeland, Edward and Juliet McMaster, eds. ''The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-49867-8.

Grey, J. David, ed. ''The Jane Austen Companion''. New York: Macmillan, 1986. ISBN 0-02-545540-0.

Lynch, Deidre, ed. ''Janeites: Austen's Disciples and Devotees''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-691-05005-8.

Southam, B. C., ed. ''Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870''. Vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. ISBN 0-7100-2942-X.

Southam, B. C., ed. ''Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1870–1940''. Vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. ISBN 0-7102-0189-3.

Todd, Janet, ed. ''Jane Austen In Context''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-82644-6.

Watt, Ian, ed. ''Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays''. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. ISBN 9780-130-53769-0.

Monographs and articles

Armstrong, Nancy. ''Desire and Domestic Fiction''. London: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-19-506160-8.

Butler, Marilyn. ''Jane Austen and the War of Ideas''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. ISBN 0-19-812968-8.

Byrne, Paula. ''Jane Austen and the Theatre''. London and New York: Continuum, 2002. ISBN 978-1847250476.

Collins, Irene. ''Jane Austen and the Clergy''. London: The Hambledon Press, 1994. ISBN 1-85285-114-7.

Devlin, D. D. ''Jane Austen and Education''. London: Macmillan, 1975. ISBN 0-333-14431-7.

Duckworth, Alistair M. ''The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen's Novels''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971. ISBN 0-8018-1269-0.

Fergus, Jan. ''Jane Austen and the Didactic Novel''. Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1983. ISBN 0-389-20228-2.

Ferguson, Moira. "''Mansfield Park'', Slavery, Colonialism, and Gender". ''Oxford Literary Review'' 13 (1991): 118–39.

Galperin, William. ''The Historical Austen''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. ISBN 0-812-23687-4.

Gay, Penny. ''Jane Austen and the Theatre''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-521-65213-8.

Gubar, Susan and Sandra Gilbert. ''The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination''. 1979. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-300-02596-3.

Harding, D. W., "Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen". ''Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays''. Ed. Ian Watt. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Jenkyns, Richard. ''A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-927661-7.

Johnson, Claudia L. ''Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. ISBN 0-226-40139-1.

Kirkham, Margaret. ''Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction''. Brighton: Harvester, 1983. ISBN 0-710-80468-7.

Koppel, Gene. ''The Religious Dimension in Jane Austen's Novels''. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1988.

Lascelles, Mary. ''Jane Austen and Her Art''. Original publication 1939. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Leavis, F. R. ''The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad''. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.

Litz, A. Walton. ''Jane Austen: A Study of Her Development''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Lynch, Deidre. ''The Economy of Character''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN 0-226-49820-4.

MacDonagh, Oliver. ''Jane Austen: Real and Imagined Worlds''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-300-05084-4.

Miller, D. A. ''Jane Austen, or The Secret of Style''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-691-12387-X.

Mudrick, Marvin. ''Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952.

Page, Norman. ''The Language of Jane Austen''. Oxford: Blackwell, 1972. ISBN 0-631-08280-8.

Poovey, Mary. ''The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN 0-226-67528-9.

Raven, James. ''The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-300-12261-6.

Said, Edward W. ''Culture and Imperialism''. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. ISBN 0-679-75054-1.

Todd, Janet. ''The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-521-67469-7.

Waldron, Mary. ''Jane Austen and the Fiction of Her Time''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-521-00388-1.

Wiltshire, John. ''Recreating Jane Austen''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-00282-6.

Wiltshire, John. ''Jane Austen and the Body: The Picture of Health''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-521-41476-8.

External links

Online works

Works by Jane Austen – etexts by Electronic Literature Foundation

E-books of Austen's work in ePub, mobipocket, and pdf. Includes the complete ''Juvenilia''.

Jane Austen's work in Kindle format.

Works by Jane Austen – e-books in HTML

Works by Jane Austen – printable PDF ebooks

''A Memoir of Jane Austen'' by James Edward Austen-Leigh

Museums

Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton

The Jane Austen Centre in Bath

Special Collections

Jane Austen Collections at Goucher College

Fan sites and societies

The Republic of Pemberley: the largest Jane Austen site on the web.

The Jane Austen Society of Australia

The Jane Austen Society of North America

The Jane Austen Society of the United Kingdom

Other

Category:1775 births Category:1817 deaths Category:18th-century English people Category:19th-century English people Category:Culture in Bath, Somerset Category:Burials at Winchester Cathedral Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:English Anglicans Category:English novelists Category:English romantic fiction writers Category:English women writers Category:History of Bath, Somerset Category:History of Winchester Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:People from Hampshire Category:People from Reading, Berkshire Category:Women novelists Category:Women of the Regency era

ar:جاين أوستن an:Jane Austen bn:জেন অস্টেন zh-min-nan:Jane Austen be:Джэйн Осцін be-x-old:Джэйн Остын bs:Jane Austen bg:Джейн Остин ca:Jane Austen cv:Остин Джейн cs:Jane Austenová cy:Jane Austen da:Jane Austen de:Jane Austen et:Jane Austen el:Τζέιν Όστεν es:Jane Austen eo:Jane Austen eu:Jane Austen fa:جین آستن fr:Jane Austen fy:Jane Austen ga:Jane Austen gv:Jane Austen gd:Jane Austen gl:Jane Austen ko:제인 오스틴 hy:Ջեյն Օսթին hi:जेन ऑस्टेन hr:Jane Austen io:Jane Austen id:Jane Austen is:Jane Austen it:Jane Austen he:ג'יין אוסטן ka:ჯეინ ოსტინი la:Ioanna Austen lv:Džeina Ostina lt:Jane Austen hu:Jane Austen mk:Џејн Остин ml:ജെയ്ൻ ഓസ്റ്റെൻ mr:जेन ऑस्टेन ms:Jane Austen mn:Жейн Остин nl:Jane Austen ja:ジェーン・オースティン no:Jane Austen nn:Jane Austen nov:Jane Austen ps:جېن آسټن pms:Jane Austen pl:Jane Austen pt:Jane Austen ro:Jane Austen ru:Остин, Джейн sq:Jane Austen simple:Jane Austen sk:Jane Austenová sl:Jane Austen szl:Jane Austen sr:Џејн Остин sh:Jane Austen fi:Jane Austen sv:Jane Austen tl:Jane Austen ta:ஜேன் ஆஸ்டின் tt:Джейн Остин th:เจน ออสเตน tg:Ҷейн Аустен tr:Jane Austen uk:Джейн Остін ug:ئوستىيىن vi:Jane Austen war:Jane Austen yo:Jane Austen zh-yue:珍奧斯汀 zh:简·奥斯丁

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise. Also, " The Man is coming" is a term used to frighten small children who are misbehaving.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

History

The term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to the late 19th Century. In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel ''Naked Lunch'', and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in ''U.S. News and World Report'', had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine ''Easyriders'' which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema.

Use as praise

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also

Absentee landlord

Big Brother (''Nineteen Eighty-Four'')

New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Ruling class

The Establishment

Power elite

Corrections officer

YTMND

Notes

References

Lighter, J.E. (Ed.). (1997). ''Random House Dictionary of American Slang''. New York: Random House.

Category:Slang expressions Category:Stock characters Category:English idioms Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Military-industrial complex

The Man in the Iron Mask (French: ''L'Homme au Masque de Fer)'' is a name given to a prisoner arrested as Eustache Dauger in 1669, and held in a number of jails, including the Bastille and the Fortress of Pignerol (today Pinerolo). He was held in the custody of the same jailer, Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars, for a period of 34 years. He died on 19 November 1703 under the name of Marchioly, during the reign of Louis XIV of France, 1643-1715. The possible identity of this man has been thoroughly discussed and has been the subject of many books, because no one ever saw his face, which was hidden by a mask of black velvet cloth.

In the second edition of his ''Questions sur l'Encyclopédie'' (French for "Questions on the Encyclopedia"), published in 1771, the writer and philosopher Voltaire claimed that the prisoner wore an iron mask and was the older, illegitimate brother of Louis XIV. In the late 1840s, the writer Alexandre Dumas elaborated on the theme in the final installment of his ''Three Musketeers'' saga: here the prisoner is forced to wear an iron mask and is Louis XIV's twin brother.

What facts are known about this prisoner are based mainly on correspondence between his jailer and his superiors in Paris.

The prisoner

Arrest and imprisonment

The first surviving records of the masked prisoner are from late July 1669, when Louis XIV's minister the Marquis de Louvois sent a letter to Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars, governor of the prison of Pignerol, then part of France. In his letter, Louvois informed Saint-Mars that a prisoner named Eustache Dauger was due to arrive in the next month or so.

Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to prepare a cell with multiple doors, one closing upon the other, which were to prevent anyone from the outside listening in. Saint-Mars himself was to see Dauger only once a day in order to provide food and whatever else he needed. Dauger was also to be told that if he spoke of anything other than his immediate needs he would be killed, but, according to Louvois, the prisoner should not require much since he was "only a valet".

Historians have noted that the name ''Eustache Dauger'' was written in a different handwriting to the rest of the text, suggesting that while a clerk wrote the letter under Louvois's dictation, a third party, very likely the minister himself, added the name afterwards.

The man himself was arrested by Captain Alexandre de Vauroy, garrison commander of Dunkirk, and taken to Pignerol where he arrived in late August. Evidence has been produced to suggest that the arrest was actually made in Calais and that not even the local governor was informed of the event — Vauroy's absence being explained away by him hunting for Spanish soldiers who had strayed into France via the Spanish Netherlands.

The first rumours of the prisoner's identity (as a Marshal of France) began to circulate at this point. According to many versions of this legend, the prisoner wore the mask at all times. It is more probable that he was masked only during transport, such as when he was taken from prison to prison, and when there were outside visitors to the jail.

The masked man serves as a valet

The prison at Pignerol, like the others at which Dauger was later held, was used for men who were considered an embarrassment to the state and usually only had a handful of prisoners at a time.

Saint-Mars's other prisoners at Pignerol included Count Ercole Antonio Mattioli (or Matthioli), an Italian diplomat who had been kidnapped and jailed for double-crossing the French over the purchase of the important fortress town of Casale on the Italian border. There was also Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis of Belle-Île, a former superintendent of finances, who had been jailed by Louis XIV on the charge of embezzlement; and the Marquis de Lauzun, who had become engaged to the Duchess of Montpensier, a cousin of the King, without the King's consent. Fouquet's cell was above that of Lauzun.

In his letters to Louvois, Saint-Mars describes Dauger as a quiet man, giving no trouble, "disposed to the will of God and to the king", compared to his other prisoners who were either always complaining, constantly trying to escape, or simply mad.

Dauger was not always isolated from the other prisoners. Wealthy and important ones usually had manservants; Fouquet for instance was served by a man called La Rivière. These servants, however, would become as much prisoners as their masters and it was thus difficult to find people willing to volunteer for such an occupation. Since La Rivière was often ill, Saint-Mars applied for permission for Dauger to act as servant for Fouquet. In 1675 Louvois gave permission for such an arrangement on condition that he was only to serve Fouquet while La Rivière was unavailable and that he was not to meet anyone else; for instance, if Fouquet and Lauzun were to meet, Dauger was not to be present.

The fact that the man in the mask served as a valet is an important one. Fouquet was never expected to be released, thus meeting Dauger was no great matter, but Lauzun was expected to be set free eventually and it would have been important not to have him spread rumours of Dauger's existence. Historians have also argued that 17^th-century protocol made it unthinkable that a man of royal blood would serve as a manservant — thus very much discrediting those suggestions that Dauger was in any way related to the king.

After Fouquet's death in 1680, Saint-Mars discovered a secret hole between Fouquet and Lauzun's cells. He was sure that they had communicated through this hole without supervision by him or his guards and thus that Lauzun must have been made aware of Dauger's existence. Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to move Lauzun to Fouquet's cell and to tell him that Dauger and La Rivière had been released. In fact they were held in another cell in another part of the prison, their presence there being highly secret.

Other prisons

Lauzun was freed in 1681. Later that same year Saint-Mars was appointed governor of the prison fortress of Exiles (now Exilles in Italy). He went there, taking Dauger and La Riviere with him. La Riviere's death was reported in January 1687 and in May Saint-Mars and Dauger moved to Sainte-Marguerite, one of the Lérins Islands, half a mile offshore from Cannes.

It was during the journey to Sainte-Marguerite that rumours spread that the prisoner was wearing an iron mask. Again, he was placed in a cell with multiple doors.

On September 18, 1698, Saint-Mars took up his new post as governor of the Bastille prison in Paris, bringing the masked prisoner with him. He was placed in a solitary cell in the pre-furnished third chamber of the Bertaudière tower. The prison's second-in-command, de Rosarges, was to feed him. Lieutenant du Junca, another officer of the Bastille, noted that the prisoner wore "a mask of black velvet".

The prisoner died on November 19, 1703, and was buried the next day under the name of ''Marchioly''. All his furniture and clothing were reportedly destroyed afterwards.

In 1711, King Louis's sister-in-law, the Princess Palatine, sent a letter to her aunt, Sophia, Electress of Hanover, stating that the prisoner had "two musketeers at his side to kill him if he removed his mask". She described him as very devout, and that he was well treated and received everything he desired. It might be noted though that the prisoner had already been dead for eight years and that the Princess had not necessarily seen him for herself, thus she was quite likely reporting on rumors she had heard at court.

Interest

The fate of the mysterious prisoner — and the extent of apparent precautions his jailers took — created much interest and many legends. There are almost a hundred theories in existence and many books have been written about the case. Some were presented after the existence of the letters was widely known. Later commentators have still presented their own theories, possibly based on embellished versions of the original tale.

Theories about his identity made at the time included that he was a Marshal of France; or the English Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell; or François, Duke of Beaufort. Later, many people such as Voltaire and Alexandre Dumas put forward other theories about the man in the mask.

It has even been suggested that he was one of the other famous contemporary prisoners being held at Pignerol at the same time as Dauger.

Candidates

The King's relative

Voltaire claimed that the prisoner was a son of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin, and therefore an illegitimate half-brother of King Louis XIV. How serious he was is hard to say. Alexandre Dumas used this theory in his book, ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'', but made the prisoner a twin brother. This book has served as the basis - even if loosely adapted - for many film versions of the story.

Hugh Ross Williamson argues that the man in the iron mask was actually the father of Louis XIV. According to this theory, the 'miraculous' birth of Louis XIV in 1638, after Louis XIII had been estranged from his wife for over twenty years, implies that Louis XIII was not the father.

The suggestion is that the King's minister, Cardinal Richelieu, had arranged for a substitute, probably an illegitimate son or grandson of Henry IV, to become intimate with the Queen, and father an heir. At the time, the heir presumptive was Louis XIII's brother Gaston d'Orléans, who was also Richelieu's enemy. If Gaston became King, Richelieu would quite likely have lost both his job as minister and his life, so it was in his interests to thwart Gaston's ambitions. Louis XIII also hated Gaston and might thus have agreed to the scheme.

Supposedly the father then left for the Americas, but in the 1660s returned to France with the aim of extorting money for keeping his secret, and was promptly imprisoned. This theory would explain both the secrecy surrounding the prisoner, whose true identity would have destroyed the legitimacy of Louis XIV had it been revealed, and (because of the King's respect for his own father) the comfort of the terms of his imprisonment and the fact that he was not simply killed.

The general

In 1890 Louis Gendron, a French military historian, came across some coded letters and passed them on to Etienne Bazeries in the French Army's cryptographic department. After three years Bazeries managed to read some messages in the Great Cipher of Louis XIV. One of them referred to a prisoner and identified him as General Vivien de Bulonde. One of the letters written by Louvois made specific reference to de Bulonde's crime.

At the Siege of Cuneo in 1691, Bulonde was concerned about enemy troops arriving from Austria and ordered a hasty withdrawal, leaving behind his munitions and wounded men. Louis XIV was furious and in another of the letters specifically ordered him "to be conducted to the fortress at Pignerol where he will be locked in a cell and under guard at night, and permitted to walk the battlements during the day with a 330 309". It has been suggested that the "330" stood for ''masque'' and the 309 for "full stop". The dates of the letters fit the dates of the original records about the man in the mask. However, in 17th-century French ''avec un masque'' would mean "with a person in a mask".

Some believe that the evidence of the letters means that there is now little need of an alternative explanation for the man in the mask. Other sources, however, claim that Bulonde's arrest was no secret, was actually published in a newspaper at the time and that he was released after just a few months. His death is also recorded as happening in 1709, six years after that of the man in the mask.

The valet

In 1801 revolutionary legislator Pierre Roux-Fazillac stated that the tale of the masked prisoner was an amalgamation of the fates of two separate prisoners, Ercole Antonio Mattioli (see below) and an imprisoned valet named "Eustache D'auger".

Andrew Lang, in his ''The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories'' (1903), presented a theory that "Eustache Dauger" was a prison pseudonym of a man called "Martin", valet of the Huguenot Roux de Marsilly. After his master's execution in 1669 the valet was taken to France, possibly by capture or subterfuge, and imprisoned because he might have known too much about his master's affairs.

The son of Charles II

In ''The Man of the Mask'' (1908), Arthur Barnes presents James de la Cloche, the alleged illegitimate son of the reluctant Protestant Charles II of England, who would have been his father's secret intermediary with the Catholic court of France. Louis XIV could have imprisoned him because he knew too much about French affairs with England.

One of Charles's confirmed illegitimate sons has also been proposed as the man in the mask. This was the Duke of Monmouth. A Protestant, he led a rebellion against his uncle, the Catholic King James II. The rebellion failed and Monmouth was executed in 1685. But in 1768 a writer named Saint-Foix claimed that another man was executed in his place and that Monmouth became the masked prisoner, it being in Louis XIV's interests to assist a fellow Catholic like James who would not necessarily want to kill his own nephew. (Saint-Foix's case was based on unsubstantiated rumours, and allegations that Monmouth's execution was faked.)

The government minister

Other popular suspects have included men known to have been held at Pignerol at the same time as Dauger. Fouquet himself has been considered, but the fact that Dauger is known to have served as his valet makes this unlikely. During the taking of the Bastille during the French Revolution of 1789, it was reported that a skeleton was found, still chained to the wall, and with an iron mask next to him. An inscription claimed that his name was "Fouquet".

This discovery has since been discredited, however, and it is supposed that it was an attempt by the leaders of the Revolution to make up for the fact that there were no actual political prisoners in the Bastille at the time of its taking. In fact there were only a handful of people serving time for forgery and a couple of lunatics.

The Italian diplomat

Another candidate, much favoured in the 19th-century, was Fouquet's fellow prisoner Count Ercole Antonio Mattioli (or Matthioli). He was an Italian diplomat who, in 1678, acted on behalf of the debt-ridden Charles IV, Duke of Mantua, in the selling of Casale, a strategic fortified town near the border with France. Because a French occupation would be unpopular, discretion was essential, but, after pocketing his commission once the sale had been concluded, Mattioli leaked the details to France's Spanish enemies who made a bid of their own before the French forces could occupy the town. Mattioli was kidnapped by the French and thrown into nearby Pignerol in April 1679. The French took possession of Casale two years later.

Since the prisoner is known to have been buried under the name "Marchioly", many believe that this is proof enough that he was the man in the mask. The Hon. George Agar Ellis reached the conclusion that Mattioli was the state prisoner commonly called The Iron Mask when he reviewed documents extracted from French archives in the 1820s. His book, published in English in 1826, was also translated into French and published in 1830. The German historian, Wilhelm Broecking came to the same conclusion independently seventy years later. Robert Chambers' ''Book of Days'' supports the claim and places Matthioli in the Bastille for the last 13 years of his life.

Since that time, letters purportedly sent by Saint-Mars, which earlier historians missed, indicate that Mattioli was only held at Pignerol and Sainte-Marguerite and was not at Exiles or the Bastille and therefore it is argued that he can be discounted.

Eustache Dauger - the name of the prisoner

In his letter to Saint-Mars announcing the imminent arrival of the prisoner who would become the "man in the iron mask", Louvois gave his name as "Eustache Dauger" and historians have found evidence that a Eustache Dauger was living at the time and was involved in shady and embarrassing events involving people in high places. His full name was Eustache Dauger de Cavoye.

Records indicate that he was born on 30 August 1637, the son of François Dauger, a captain in Cardinal Richelieu's guards. François was married to Marie de Sérignan and they had eleven children, nine of whom survived into adulthood. When François and his two eldest sons were killed in battle, Eustache became the nominal head of the family. Like them he joined the army where he came under the command of Armand de Gramont, comte de Guiche, a brave soldier, notorious playboy and bisexual.

Disgrace

In April 1659, Eustache and Guiche were invited to an Easter weekend party at the castle of Roissy-en-Brie. By all accounts it was a debauched affair of merry-making with the men involved in all sorts of sordid activities, including attacking a man who claimed to be Cardinal Mazarin's attorney. It was also claimed, among other things, that a black mass was enacted, homosexual activity had taken place and that a pig was baptized as "carp" in order that they could eat pork on Good Friday.

When news of these events became public an enquiry was held and the various perpetrators jailed or exiled. There is no record as to what happened to Dauger, but in 1665, near the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, he allegedly killed a young page boy in a drunken brawl involving the Duc de Foix. The two men claimed that they had been provoked by the boy who was drunk, but the fact that the killing took place near a castle where the King was staying meant that this was not good enough an explanation and, as a result, Dauger was forced to resign his commission.

Dauger's mother died shortly afterwards. In her will, written a year before, she passed over her eldest surviving sons, Eustache and Armand, leaving the bulk of the estate to their younger brother Louis. Eustache was restricted in how much money he had access to, having built up considerable debts, and barely being left with enough for "food and upkeep". As titular head of the family, he had come into some small estates, but gave these up to Louis, who provided him with an additional annual payment.

Affair of the Poisons

In the 1930s, the historian Maurice Duvivier linked Eustache Dauger de Cavoye to the Affair of the Poisons, a notorious scandal of 1677-1682 in which people in high places were accused of being involved in black mass and poisonings. An investigation had been launched, but Louis XIV had instigated a cover-up when it appeared that his mistress, Madame de Montespan, and his sister-in-law, Henrietta, the Duchesse of Orléans, were involved.

The records show that during the enquiry the investigators were told about a supplier of poisons, a surgeon named Auger, and Duvivier became convinced that Dauger de Cavoye, disinherited and short of money, had become Auger, the supplier of poisons, and subsequently Dauger, the man in the mask.

In a letter sent by Louvois to Saint-Mars, shortly after Fouquet's death while in prison (with Dauger acting as his valet), the minister adds a note in his own handwriting, asking how Dauger performed certain acts that Saint-Mars had mentioned in a previous correspondence (now lost) and "how he got the drugs necessary to do so". Duvivier suggested that Dauger may have poisoned Fouquet as part of a complex power-struggle between Louvois and his rival Colbert.

Dauger in prison

However, evidence has emerged that Dauger de Cavoye actually died in the Prison Saint-Lazare, an asylum run by monks which many families used in order to imprison their "black sheep". Documents have survived indicating that Dauger de Cavoye was held at Saint-Lazare in Paris at about the same time that Dauger, the man in the mask, was taken into custody in Pignerol, hundreds of miles away in the south.

These include a letter sent to Dauger de Cavoye's sister, the Marquise de Fabrègues, dated 20 June 1678, which is filled with self-pity as Eustache complains about his treatment in prison, where he has been held for 10 years, and how he was deceived by their brother Louis and Clérac, their brother-in-law and the manager of Louis' estate. A year later, he wrote a letter to the King, outlining the same complaints and making a similar request for freedom. The best the King would do, however, was to send a letter to the head of Saint-Lazare telling him that "M. de Cavoye should have communication with no one at all, not even with his sister, unless in your presence or in the presence of one of the priests of the mission". The letter was signed by the King and Colbert.

A poem written by the Comte de Brienne, himself an inmate at the time, indicates that Eustache Dauger de Cavoye died as a result of heavy drinking in the late 1680s. Historians consider all this proof enough that he was not involved in any way with the man in the mask.

In popular culture

;Literature

Alexandre Dumas, père, ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne''

Henry Vizetelly, ''The Man With the Iron Mask''

Juliette Benzoni, ''Secret d'etat''

Louis-César, ''Cassandra Palmer series''

;Films and television

1909: ''La maschera di ferro'' - Italian silent film

1923: ''Der Mann mit der eisernen Maske'' - German silent film

1929: ''The Iron Mask'' - An American silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks

1939: ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' - American black and white film directed by James Whale, starring Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, Warren William and Alan Hale, Sr. (as "Porthos")

1952: ''Lady in the Iron Mask'' - American color film starring Louis Hayward, Patricia Medina and Alan Hale, Jr. (as "Porthos")

1962: ''Le Masque de fer'' - Italian/French film, starring Jean Marais

1968: ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' - British TV series (9 episodes)

1977: ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' (1977) - British TV movie with Richard Chamberlain, Patrick McGoohan, Louis Jourdan, Jenny Agutter, Ian Holm, Ralph Richardson and Vivien Merchant

1979: ''The Fifth Musketeer'' also known as ''Behind the Iron Mask'' - Austrian/West German film directed by Ken Annakin, with Ursula Andress, Beau Bridges, Cornel Wilde, Lloyd Bridges, José Ferrer, Olivia de Havilland, Rex Harrison and Alan Hale Jr. (as "Porthos"); remake of the 1939 film

1985: ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' - Australian animated TV film

1987: ''Three Musketeers'' - Japanese anime TV series, included the character of The Man in the Iron Mask depicted as a Doctor Doom-like villain.

1998: ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' - British/American film directed by Randall Wallace, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gérard Depardieu and Gabriel Byrne

1998: ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' also known as ''The Mask of Dumas'' - American film, directed by William Richert, with Edward Albert, Dana Barron, Rex Ryon and Timothy Bottoms

See also

Dumas's 1848 novel ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'', the final section of which is titled ''The Man in the Iron Mask'' (French: ) and is based on this legend.

Ivan VI of Russia, who was an almost lifelong prisoner after ascending the Russian throne as a baby, only to be overthrown within a few years.

Look-alike.

Notes

External links

''The Mystery of the Iron Mask''

Who was the "Man in the Iron Mask"? at the Straight Dope

Category:17th-century births Category:1703 deaths Category:People of the Ancien Régime Category:Prisoners and detainees of France Category:Unidentified people Category:French folklore Category:Legends bg:Желязната маска de:Mann mit der eisernen Maske es:El hombre de la máscara de hierro fr:Homme au masque de fer it:Maschera di ferro he:האיש במסכת הברזל ka:რკინის ნიღაბი nl:Man in het ijzeren masker ja:鉄仮面 pl:Człowiek w żelaznej masce ru:Железная маска sr:Човек са гвозденом маском zh:鐵面人

Coordinates	21°50′52″N105°45′28″N
name	Alexandre Dumas
birth name	Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie
birth date	July 24, 1802
birth place	Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, France
death date	December 05, 1870
death place	Puys (near Dieppe), Seine-Maritime, France
occupation	playwright and novelist
nationality	French
period	1829–1870
movement	Romanticism and Historical fiction
notableworks	''The Count of Monte Cristo'', ''The Three Musketeers''
influences	Hector Berlioz
influenced	Stephen King, Steven Brust, Robert E. Howard, Narcís Oller, Juan Gómez-Jurado, Alexandru Hrisoverghi, Emilio Salgari, Jin Yong, Jules Verne, Henryk Sienkiewicz
signature	Alexandre Dumas Signature.svg }}

Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie () (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', ''The Three Musketeers'', ''Twenty Years After'', and ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'' were originally serialized. He also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent. Born in poverty, Dumas was the grandson of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave.

Early life

Alexandre Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France.

Dumas' paternal grandparents were Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and ''Général commissaire'' in the Artillery in the colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and Marie-Cesette Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean Creole of mixed French and African ancestry. Their son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, married Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper. Thomas-Alexandre, then a general in Napoleon's army, fell out of favor and the family was impoverished when Dumas was born.

Thomas-Alexandre died in 1806. His widow was unable to provide her son with much of an education, but Dumas read everything he could obtain. His mother's stories of his father's bravery during the years of Napoleon I of France inspired Dumas' vivid imagination for adventure. Although poor, the family had their father's distinguished reputation and aristocratic position. In 1822, after the restoration of the monarchy, 20-year old Alexandre Dumas moved to Paris, where he worked at the Palais Royal in the office of duc d'Orléans (Louis Philippe).

Career

While in Paris, Dumas began writing for magazines and plays for the theater. His first play, ''Henry III and His Court'', was produced in 1829, and was met with acclaim. The next year his second play, ''Christine'', was equally popular, and he was financially able to write full-time. In 1830 he participated in the Revolution which ousted Charles X, and which replaced him on the throne with Dumas' former employer, the Duc d'Orléans, who would rule as Louis-Philippe, the ''Citizen King''.

Until the mid-1830s life in France remained unsettled, with sporadic riots by disgruntled Republicans and impoverished urban workers seeking change. As life slowly returned to normal, the nation began to industrialize, and with an improving economy—combined with the end of press censorship—the times were very rewarding for the skills of Alexandre Dumas.

After writing more successful plays, he turned his efforts to novels. Although attracted to an extravagant lifestyle, and always spending more than he earned, Dumas proved to be an astute marketer. Since newspapers wanted many serial novels, in 1838 Dumas rewrote one of his plays to create his first serial novel, titled ''Le Capitaine Paul'', which led to his forming a production studio that turned out hundreds of stories, all subject to his personal input and direction.

From 1839 to 1841 Dumas, with the assistance of several friends, compiled ''Celebrated Crimes'', an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history, including Beatrice Cenci, Martin Guerre, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia as well as more recent incidents, including the cases of executed alleged murderers Karl Ludwig Sand and Antoine François Desrues.

Dumas also collaborated with his fencing master Augustin Grisier in his 1840 novel, ''The Fencing Master''. The story is written to be Grisier's narrated account of how he came to witness the events of the Decembrist revolt in Russia. This novel was eventually banned in Russia by Czar Nicholas I, causing Dumas to be banned from visiting Russia until after the Czar's death. Grisier is also mentioned with great respect in ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', ''The Corsican Brothers'' and in Dumas' memoirs.

Dumas made extensive use of the aid of numerous assistants and collaborators, of whom Auguste Maquet was the best known. It was Maquet who outlined the plot of ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', and made substantial contributions to ''The Three Musketeers'' and its sequels, as well as to several of Dumas' other novels. When they were working together, Maquet proposed plots and wrote drafts, while Dumas added the details, dialogues, and the final chapters. See ''Andrew Lang'' essay, ''Alexandre Dumas''—in his ''Essays In Little'' (1891)—for an accurate description of these collaborations.

Dumas' writing earned him a great deal of money, but Dumas was frequently insolvent as a result of spending lavishly on women and sumptuous living. The large Château de Monte-Cristo that he built was often filled with strangers and acquaintances taking advantage of his generosity.

When King Louis-Philippe was ousted in a revolt, Dumas was not looked upon favorably by the newly elected President, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. In 1851 Dumas fled to Brussels, Belgium, to escape his creditors, and from there he traveled to Russia, where French was the second language, and where his writings were enormously popular. Dumas spent two years in Russia, before moving on to seek adventure and fodder for more stories. In March 1861 the kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king. For the next three years Alexandre Dumas would be involved in the fight for a united Italy, founding and leading a newspaper, named ''Indipendente'', and returning to Paris in 1864.

Despite Alexandre Dumas' success and aristocratic background, his being of mixed race affected him all his life. In 1843 he wrote a short novel, ''Georges'', that addressed some of the issues of race and the effects of colonialism. He once remarked to a man who insulted him about his mixed-race background:

"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends."

Personal life

On 1 February 1840 he married actress Ida Ferrier (born Marguerite-Joséphine Ferrand) (1811—1859) but continued with his numerous liaisons with other women, fathering at least four illegitimate children. One of those children, a son named after him, whose mother was Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay (1794—1868), a dressmaker, would follow in his footsteps, also becoming a successful novelist and playwright. Because of their same name and occupation, the father is often referred to as Alexandre Dumas, ''père'', and the son as Alexandre Dumas, ''fils''. His other children were Marie-Alexandrine Dumas (5 March 1831—1878) who later married Pierre Petel and was daughter of Belle Krelsamer (1803—1875), Micaëlla-Clélie-Josepha-Élisabeth Cordier, born in 1860 and daughter of Emélie Cordier, and Henry Bauer, born of an unknown mother.

Death and legacy

In June 2005 Dumas' recently discovered last novel, ''The Knight of Sainte-Hermine'', went on sale in France. Within the story Dumas describes the Battle of Trafalgar, in which the death of Lord Nelson is explained. The novel was being published serially, and was nearly complete at the time of his death. A final two-and-a-half chapters were written by modern-day Dumas scholar Claude Schopp, who based his efforts on Dumas' pre-writing notes.

Although he was originally buried where he had been born, in 2002 French President, Jacques Chirac, had his body exhumed. During a televised ceremony his new coffin, draped in a blue velvet cloth and flanked by four Republican Guards (costumed as the Musketeers—Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan), was transported in a solemn procession to the Panthéon of Paris, the great mausoleum where French luminaries are interred. In his speech President Chirac said:

"With you, we were D'Artagnan, Monte Cristo, or Balsamo, riding along the roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting palaces and castles—with you, we dream."

Also during that speech, Chirac acknowledged the racism that had existed, saying that a wrong had now been righted, with Alexandre Dumas enshrined alongside fellow authors Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. The honor recognized that although France has produced many great writers, none has been so widely read as Alexandre Dumas. His stories have been translated into almost a hundred languages, and have inspired more than 200 motion pictures.

Alexandre Dumas' home outside of Paris, the Château de Monte-Cristo, has been restored and is open to the public. The Alexandre Dumas Paris Métro station was named in his honour in 1970.

Works

Fiction

Alexandre Dumas wrote stories and historical chronicles of high adventure that captured the imagination of the French public, who eagerly waited to purchase the continuing sagas. A few of these works:

''Charles VII at the Homes of His Great Vassals'' (''Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux'', 1831) – drama, adapted for the opera ''The Saracen'' by Russian composer César Cui

''Othon l’archer''

''Captain Pamphile'' (''Le Capitaine Pamphile'', 1939)

''The Fencing Master'' (''Le Maître d'armes'', 1840)

''Castle Eppstein; The Specter Mother'' (''Chateau d'Eppstein; Albine'', 1843)

''Georges'' (1843): The protagonist of this novel is a man of mixed race, a rare allusion to Dumas' own African ancestry.

''Louis XIV and His Century'' (''Louis XIV et son siècle'', 1844)

''The Nutcracker'' (''Histoire d'un casse-noisette'', 1844): a revision of Hoffmann's story ''The Nutcracker and the Mouse King'', later adapted by Tchaikovsky as a ballet

the D'Artagnan Romances:

* ''The Three Musketeers'' (''Les Trois Mousquetaires'', 1844)

* ''Twenty Years After'' (''Vingt ans après'', 1845)

* ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'', sometimes called "Ten Years Later", (''Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard'', 1847): When published in English, it was usually split into three parts: ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'', ''Louise de la Valliere'', and ''The Man in the Iron Mask'', of which the last part is the best known. (A third sequel, ''The Son of Porthos'', 1883 (a.k.a. ''The Death of Aramis'') was published under the name of Alexandre Dumas; however, the real author was Paul Mahalin.)

''The Corsican Brothers'' (''Les Frères Corses'', 1844)

''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (''Le Comte de Monte-Cristo'', 1845–1846)

''The Regent's Daughter'' (''Une Fille du régent'', 1845)

''The Two Dianas'' (''Les Deux Diane'', 1846)

the Valois romances

* ''The horoscope : a romance of the reign of François II'' (1897?)

* ''La Reine Margot'' (1845)

* ''La Dame de Monsoreau'' (1846) (a.k.a. ''Chicot the Jester'')

* ''The Forty-Five Guardsmen'' (1847) (''Les Quarante-cinq'')

the Marie Antoinette romances:

* ''Joseph Balsamo'' (''Mémoires d'un médecin: Joseph Balsamo'', 1846–1848) (a.k.a. ''Memoirs of a Physician'', ''Cagliostro'', ''Madame Dubarry'', ''The Countess Dubarry'', or ''The Elixir of Life'')''(Joseph Balsamo has a length of about 1000 pages, and is usually separated into 2 volumes in English translations: Vol 1. Joseph Balsamo and Vol 2. Memoirs of a Physician.)''

* ''The Queen's Necklace'' (''Le Collier de la Reine'', 1849–1850)

* ''Ange Pitou'' (1853) (a.k.a. ''Storming the Bastille'' or ''Six Years Later'')

* ''The Countess de Charny'' (''La Comtesse de Charny'', 1853–1855) (a.k.a. ''Andrée de Taverney'', or ''The Mesmerist's Victim'')

* ''Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge'' (1845) (a.k.a. ''The Knight of the Red House'', or ''The Knight of Maison-Rouge'')

''The Black Tulip'' (''La Tulipe noire'', 1850)

''Olympe de Cleves'' (''Olympe de Cleves'', 1851-2)

''The Page of the Duke of Savoy'' (''Catherine Blum'', 1853-4)

''The Mohicans of Paris'' (''Les Mohicans de Paris'', 1854)

''The Wolf-Leader'' (''Le Meneur de loups'', 1857)

''The Gold Thieves'' (after 1857): a lost play that was rediscovered by the Canadian Reginald Hamel, researcher in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2004

''The Companions of Jehu'' (''Les Compagnons de Jehu'', 1857)

''Robin Hood'' (''Robin Hood le proscrit'', 1863)

''The Count of Moret; The Red Sphinx; or, Richelieu and his rivals'' (''Le Comte de Moret; Le Sphinx Rouge'', 1865–1866)

''The Whites and the Blues'' (''Les Blancs et les Bleus'', 1867)

''The Knight of Sainte-Hermine'' (''Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine'', 1869): This nearly completed novel was his last major work and was lost until its rediscovery by Claude Schopp in 1988 and subsequent release in 2005.

The Women's War (''La Guerre des Femmes''): follows Baron des Canolles, a naive Gascon soldier who falls in love with two women.

Drama

Although best known now as a novelist, Dumas first earned fame as a dramatist. His ''Henri III et sa cour'' (1829) was the first of the great Romantic historical dramas produced on the Paris stage, preceding Victor Hugo's more famous ''Hernani'' (1830). Produced at the Comédie-Française, and starring the famous Mademoiselle Mars, Dumas' play was an enormous success, launching him on his career. It had fifty performances over the next year, extraordinary at the time.

Other hits followed. For example, ''Antony'' (1831)—a drama with a contemporary Byronic hero—is considered the first non-historical Romantic drama. It starred Mars' great rival Marie Dorval. There were also ''La Tour de Nesle'' – 1832, another historical melodrama, and ''Kean'' – 1836, based on the life of the great, and recently deceased, English actor Edmund Kean, played in turn by the great French actor Frédérick Lemaître. Dumas wrote many more plays and dramatized several of his own novels.

It is worthwhile to note that Dumas founded Théâtre Historique at the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, which later became Opéra National (established by Adolphe Adam in 1847). That in turn became Théâtre Lyrique in 1851.

Non-fiction

Dumas was also a prolific writer of non-fiction. He wrote journal articles on politics and culture, and books on French history.

His massive ''Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine'' (''Great Dictionary of Cuisine'') was published posthumously in 1873. It is a combination of encyclopedia and cookbook. Dumas was both a gourmet and an expert cook. An abridged version (the ''Petit Dictionnaire de cuisine'', or ''Small Dictionary of Cuisine'') was published in 1882.

He was also a well-known travel writer, writing such books as:

''Impressions de voyage: En Suisse'' (''Travel Impressions: In Switzerland'', 1834)

''Une Année à Florence'' (''A Year in Florence'', 1841)

''De Paris à Cadix'' (''From Paris to Cadiz'', 1847)

''Le Journal de Madame Giovanni'' (''The Journal of Madame Giovanni'', 1856)

''Travel Impressions in the Kingdom of Napoli/Naples Trilogy'' (''Impressions de voyage''):

''Impressions of Travel in Sicily'' (''Le Speronare (Sicily – 1835)'', 1842

''Captain Arena'' (''Le Capitaine Arena (Italy – Aeolian Islands and Calabria – 1835)'', 1842

''Impressions of Travel in Naples'' (''Le Corricolo (Rome – Naples – 1835)'', 1843

''Travel Impressions in Russia:''

''Adventures in Czarist Russia, or From Paris to Astrakhan'' (''Impressions de voyage: En Russie; De Paris à Astrakan: Nouvelles impressions de voyage (1858)'', 1859–1862

''Voyage to the Caucasus'' (''Le Caucase : Impressions de voyage; suite de En Russie (1859)'', 1858–1859

Notes

References

External links

Works by Alexandre Dumas at Internet Archive

Herald Sun: Lost Dumas play discovered

Lost Dumas novel hits bookshelves

Dumas' Works: text, concordances and frequency lists

The Alexandre Dumas père website, with a complete bibliography and notes about many of the works

Rafferty, Terrence. "All for One", ''The New York Times'', August 20, 2006 (a review of the new translation of ''The Three Musketeers'', ISBN 0670037796)

1866 Caricature of Alexandre Dumas by André Gill

Alexandre Dumas et compagnie : Freely downloadable works of Alexandre Dumas in PDF format (text mode)

Alexandre Dumas Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin

Alejandro Dumas Vida y Obras First Spanish Website about Alexandre Dumas and his works.

Category:1802 births Category:1870 deaths Category:19th-century French writers Category:19th-century theatre Category:Burials at the Panthéon Category:French dramatists and playwrights Category:French historical novelists Category:French fantasy writers Category:French food writers Category:French memoirists Category:French novelists Category:French people of African descent Category:People from Aisne Category:Western writers about Imperial Russia

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