Sylvandire: A Play in Four Acts

By Alexandre Dumas

In 1844-45, while Alexandre Dumas was working on his two classic novels, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, he found time to write a play called Sylvandire. A young provincial, Roger Tancred d'Anguilem, arrives in Paris to fight a legal battle for a huge inheritance. His opponent is an Indian called Afghano, who has bribed the judges. The case appears lost until Roger's approached by a sleazy lawyer who promises him success--but only if he marries a woman sight unseen. Sylvandire, his new wife, turns out to be a stunning beauty, but the marriage is intended to deliver his spouse as the unwilling mistress of a royal favorite, who can imprison Roger if he resists. The Dumasian themes of unjust imprisonment, followed by implacable revenge, which were more fully developed in Monte Cristo, here make their first appearance in this entertaining and swift-moving comedy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Aug 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781434443236

Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas was born in 1802. After a childhood of extreme poverty, he took work as a clerk, and met the renowned actor Talma, and began to write short pieces for the theatre. After twenty years of success as a playwright, Dumas turned his hand to novel-writing, and penned such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), La Reine Margot (1845) and The Black Tulip (1850). After enduring a short period of bankruptcy, Dumas began to travel extensively, still keeping up a prodigious output of journalism, short fiction and novels. He fathered an illegitimate child, also called Alexandre, who would grow up to write La Dame aux Camélias. He died in Dieppe in 1870.

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