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90-417: Although the communities share many commonalities and are often seen as parallel versions of each other, their relationship has sometimes been called a "rivalry" and even a "feud". The consolidation of the two municipalities has been discussed a number of times over several decades but has never received approval. A merger effort in 1939 had too little support to hold a vote. Discussions beginning in 1970 led to

180-630: A 1972 referendum on consolidation that was approved by voters in Prairie du Sac but rejected by those in Sauk City. In 1983, the Sauk City village board ended months of discussion by voting to table the consideration of a merger. Again, in 1986, the Sauk City Board rejected a proposal to submit the consolidation to a referendum. An advisory referendum, in 1990, to merge the two communities was approved overwhelmingly by voters in both villages, but

270-567: A Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994. She remained in that capacity until her death. She was known in the community as a naturalist and humanitarian. April died on March 21, 2011. In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called Hawk and Whippoorwill , dedicated to poems of man and nature. Derleth died of

360-488: A New Zealand pharmacist who never visited France, amassed the greatest collection of books and manuscripts relating to Dumas outside France. The collection contains about 3,350 volumes, including some 2,000 sheets in Dumas's handwriting and dozens of French, Belgian and English first editions. The collection was donated to Auckland Libraries after his death. Reed wrote the most comprehensive bibliography of Dumas. In 2002, for

450-480: A Scribners' novel of which The Chicago Sun wrote: "Structurally it has the perfection of a carved jewel...A psychological novel of the first order, and an adventure tale that is unique and inspiriting." In November 1945, however, Derleth's work was attacked by his one-time admirer and mentor, Sinclair Lewis. Writing in Esquire , Lewis observed, "It is a proof of Mr. Derleth's merit that he makes one want to make

540-676: A cabin, writing Gothic and other horror stories and selling them to Weird Tales magazine. Derleth won a place on the O'Brien Roll of Honor for Five Alone , published in Place of Hawks , but was first published in Pagany magazine. As a result of his early work on the Sac Prairie Saga , Derleth was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his sponsors were Helen C. White , Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis and poet Edgar Lee Masters of Spoon River Anthology fame. In

630-687: A decade, an active supporting group was the Praed Street Irregulars, patterned after the Baker Street Irregulars . In 1946, Conan Doyle's two sons made some attempts to force Derleth to cease publishing the Solar Pons series, but the efforts were unsuccessful, and were eventually withdrawn. Derleth's mystery and detective fiction also included a series of works set in Sac Prairie and featuring Judge Peck as

720-412: A few years and then to Italy. In 1861, he founded and published the newspaper L'Indépendent , which supported Italian unification . He returned to Paris in 1864. English playwright Watts Phillips , who knew Dumas in his later life, described him as "the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth. His tongue

810-561: A gourmet and an expert cook. An abridged version (the Petit Dictionnaire de cuisine , or Small Dictionary of Cuisine ) was published in 1883. He was also known for his travel writing. These books included: French historian Alain Decaux founded the "Société des Amis d'Alexandre Dumas" (The Society of Friends of Alexandre Dumas) in 1971. As of August 2017 its president is Claude Schopp. The purpose in creating this society

900-510: A great deal of money, but he was frequently insolvent, as he spent lavishly on women and sumptuous living. (Scholars have found that he had a total of 40 mistresses. ) In 1846, he had built a country house outside Paris at Le Port-Marly , the large Château de Monte-Cristo , with an additional building for his writing studio. It often was filled with strangers and acquaintances who stayed for lengthy visits and took advantage of his generosity. Two years later, faced with financial difficulties, he sold

990-548: A heart attack on July 4, 1971, and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City. The U.S. 12 bridge over the Wisconsin River is named in his honor. Derleth was Roman Catholic . In Derleth's biography, Dorothy M. Grobe Litersky stated that Derleth was bisexual, and maintained long-term romantic relationships with both men and women. This assertion has not been verified; no names were given of these romantic partners (in

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1080-468: A marriage licence, that his mother's name was "Marie-Cessette Dumas". Some scholars have suggested that Thomas-Alexandre devised the surname "Dumas" for himself when he felt the need for one, and that he attributed it to his mother when convenient. "Dumas" means "of the farm" ( du mas ), perhaps signifying only that Marie-Cessette belonged to the farm property. While working for Louis-Philippe, Alexandre Dumas began writing articles for magazines and plays for

1170-540: A million words yearly, very little of it pulp material." In 1948, he was elected president of the Associated Fantasy Publishers at the 6th World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto . He was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters. They divorced six years later. Derleth retained custody of the couple's two children, April Rose Derleth and Walden William Derleth . April earned

1260-501: A previous relationship for "an exorbitant amount" and made Marie-Cessette his concubine . Thomas-Alexandre was the only son born to them, but they had two or three daughters. In 1775, following the death of both his brothers, Antoine left Saint-Domingue for France in order to claim the family estates and the title of Marquis. Shortly before his departure, he sold Marie-Cessette and their two daughters (Adolphe and Jeanette), as well as Marie-Cessette's oldest daughter Marie-Rose (whose father

1350-546: A racial identity for Marie-Cessette Dumas refer to her as a " négresse " (a black woman) as opposed to a " mulâtresse " (a woman of visible mixed race). It is unknown whether Marie-Cessette was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa, nor is it known from which African people her ancestors came. What is known is that, sometime after becoming estranged from his brothers, Antoine purchased Marie-Cessette and her daughter from

1440-567: A story told "with tenderness and charm", while the Chicago Tribune concluded: "It's as though he turned back the pages of an old diary and told, with rekindled emotion, of the pangs of pain and the sharp, clear sweetness of a boy's first love." Helen Constance White, wrote in The Capital Times that it was "...the best articulated, the most fully disciplined of his stories." These were followed in 1943 with Shadow of Night ,

1530-565: A struggle between good and evil, nevertheless the basis of Derleth's systemization are found in Lovecraft. He also suggests that the differences can be overstated: Derleth was more optimistic than Lovecraft in his conception of the Mythos, but we are dealing with a difference more of degree than kind. There are indeed tales wherein Derleth's protagonists get off scot-free (like "The Shadow in

1620-450: A study of his serious virtues. If he could ever be persuaded that he isn't half as good as he thinks he is, if he would learn the art of sitting still and using a blue pencil, he might become twice as good as he thinks he is – which would about rank him with Homer." Derleth good-humoredly reprinted the criticism along with a photograph of himself sans sweater, on the back cover of his 1948 country journal: Village Daybook . A lighter side to

1710-686: A writer. As newspapers were publishing many serial novels, he began producing these. His first serial novel was La Comtesse de Salisbury ; Édouard III (July-September 1836). In 1838, Dumas rewrote one of his plays as a successful serial historical novel, Le Capitaine Paul ('Captain Paul'), partly based on the life of the Scottish-American naval officer John Paul Jones . He founded a production studio, staffed with writers who turned out hundreds of stories, all subject to his personal direction, editing, and additions. From 1839 to 1841, Dumas, with

1800-460: Is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of adventure were originally published as serials , including The Count of Monte Cristo , The Three Musketeers , Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later . Since the early 20th century, his novels have been adapted into nearly 200 films. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from

1890-464: Is set in Sac Prairie of the 1920s and can thus be considered in its own right a part of the Sac Prairie Saga , as well as an extension of Derleth's body of mystery fiction. Robert Hood, writing in the New York Times said: "Steve and Sim, the major characters, are twentieth-century cousins of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer; Derleth's minor characters, little gems of comic drawing." The first novel in

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1980-675: Is written as Grisier's account of how he came to witness the events of the Decembrist revolt in Russia. The novel was eventually banned in Russia by Czar Nicholas I , and Dumas was prohibited from visiting the country until after the Czar's death. Dumas refers to Grisier with great respect in The Count of Monte Cristo , The Corsican Brothers , and in his memoirs. Dumas depended on numerous assistants and collaborators, of whom Auguste Maquet

2070-648: The St. Louis Dispatch concluded, "Derleth has achieved a kind of prose equivalent of the Spoon River Anthology ." In the same year, Evening in Spring was published by Charles Scribners & Sons. This work Derleth considered among his finest. What The Milwaukee Journal called "this beautiful little love story", is an autobiographical novel of first love beset by small-town religious bigotry. The work received critical praise: The New Yorker considered it

2160-615: The Cthulhu Mythos and the cosmic horror genre and helped found the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK). Derleth was also a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction , poetry , detective fiction , science fiction , and biography . Notably, he created

2250-810: The Duke of Orléans , who ruled 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 industrialise. An improving economy combined with the end of press censorship made the times rewarding for Alexandre Dumas's literary skills. After writing additional successful plays, Dumas switched to writing novels. Although attracted to an extravagant lifestyle and always spending more than he earned, Dumas proved to be an astute marketing strategist as well as

2340-667: The Paris Métro named a station in his honour . His country home outside Paris, the Château de Monte-Cristo , has been restored and is open to the public as a museum. Researchers have continued to find Dumas works in archives, including the five-act play The Gold Thieves , found in 2002 by the scholar Réginald Hamel  [ fr ] in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It was published in France in 2004 by Honoré-Champion. Frank Wild Reed (1874–1953),

2430-545: The Sac Prairie Saga and the Wisconsin Saga . He also wrote history; arguably most notable among these was The Wisconsin: River of a Thousand Isles , published in 1942. The work was one in a series entitled "The Rivers of America", conceived by writer Constance Lindsay Skinner during the Great Depression as a series that would connect Americans to their heritage through the history of the great rivers of

2520-520: The Sac Prairie Saga is a series of quasi-autobiographical short stories known as the "Gus Elker Stories", amusing tales of country life that Peter Ruber , Derleth's last editor, said were "...models of construction and...fused with some of the most memorable characters in American literature." Most were written between 1934 and the late 1940s, though the last, "Tail of the Dog", was published in 1959 and won

2610-541: The Scholastic Magazine short story award for the year. The series was collected and republished in Country Matters in 1996. Walden West , published in 1961, is considered by many Derleth's finest work. This prose meditation is built out of the same fundamental material as the series of Sac Prairie journals, but is organized around three themes: "the persistence of memory...the sounds and odors of

2700-485: The University of Wisconsin , where he received a B.A. in 1930. During this time he also served briefly as associate editor of Minneapolis-based Fawcett Publications Mystic Magazine . Returning to Sauk City in the summer of 1931, Derleth worked in a local canning factory and collaborated with childhood friend Mark Schorer (later Chairman of the University of California, Berkeley English Department). They rented

2790-703: The kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king. Dumas travelled there and for the next three years participated in the movement for Italian unification . He founded and led a newspaper, Indipendente . While there, he befriended Giuseppe Garibaldi , whom he had long admired and with whom he shared a commitment to liberal republican principles as well as membership within Freemasonry . Returning to Paris in 1864, he published travel books about Italy. Despite Dumas's aristocratic background and personal success, he had to deal with discrimination related to his mixed-race ancestry. In 1843, he wrote

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2880-516: The American Novel , "What Mr. Derleth has that is lacking...in modern novelists generally, is a country. He belongs. He writes of a land and a people that are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. In his fictional world, there is a unity much deeper and more fundamental than anything that can be conferred by an ideology. It is clear, too, that he did not get the best, and most fictionally useful, part of his background material from research in

2970-613: The American writers of distinction." Derleth's first novel, Still is the Summer Night , was published two years later by the famous Charles Scribners' editor Maxwell Perkins , and was the second in his Sac Prairie Saga. Village Year , the first in a series of journals – meditations on nature, Midwestern village American life, and more – was published in 1941 to praise from The New York Times Book Review : "A book of instant sensitive responsiveness...recreates its scene with acuteness and beauty, and makes an unusual contribution to

3060-463: The Americana of the present day." The New York Herald Tribune observed that "Derleth...deepens the value of his village setting by presenting in full the enduring natural background; with the people projected against this, the writing comes to have the quality of an old Flemish picture, humanity lively and amusing and loveable in the foreground and nature magnificent beyond." James Grey, writing in

3150-640: The Army and was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army. The family surname ("de la Pailleterie") was never bestowed upon Thomas-Alexandre, who therefore used "Dumas" as his surname. This is often assumed to have been his mother's surname, but in fact, the surname "Dumas" occurs only once in connection with Marie-Cessette, and that happens in Europe, when Thomas-Alexandre states, while applying for

3240-910: The Attic", "Witches' Hollow", or "The Shuttered Room"), but often the hero is doomed (e.g., "The House in the Valley", "The Peabody Heritage", "Something in Wood"), as in Lovecraft. And it must be remembered that an occasional Lovecraftian hero does manage to overcome the odds, e.g., in "The Horror in the Museum", "The Shunned House", and 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'. Derleth also treated Lovecraft's Great Old Ones as representatives of elemental forces, creating new fictional entities to flesh out this framework. Such debates aside, Derleth's founding of Arkham House and his successful effort to rescue Lovecraft from literary oblivion are widely acknowledged by practitioners in

3330-481: The Sainte-Hermine saga. Schopp combined them to publish the sequel Le Salut de l'Empire in 2008. Alexandre Dumas wrote numerous stories and historical chronicles of adventure. They included the following: In addition, Dumas wrote many series of novels: The d'Artagnan Romances : The Valois were the royal house of France from 1328 to 1589, and many Dumas romances cover their reign. Traditionally,

3420-428: The area and its residents written by local author August Derleth . 43°16′55″N 89°43′52″W  /  43.28194°N 89.73111°W  / 43.28194; -89.73111 August Derleth#The Sac Prairie Saga August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft . He made contributions to

3510-619: The assistance of several friends, compiled Celebrated Crimes , an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history. He featured Beatrice Cenci , Martin Guerre , Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia , as well as more recent events and criminals, including the cases of the alleged murderers Karl Ludwig Sand and Antoine François Desrues , who were executed. Dumas collaborated with Augustin Grisier, his fencing master, in his 1840 novel, The Fencing Master . The story

3600-509: The bicentenary of Dumas's birth, French President Jacques Chirac held a ceremony honouring the author by having his ashes re-interred at the mausoleum of the Panthéon , where many French luminaries were buried. When Chirac ordered the transfer to the mausoleum, villagers in Dumas's hometown of Villers-Cotterets were initially opposed, arguing that Dumas laid out in his memoirs that he wanted to be buried there. The village eventually bowed to

3690-610: The binding referendum that followed was approved by only Prairie du Sac voters and was defeated by those in Sauk City. Concerns raised in merger discussions include the cost to taxpayers, agreement on public works projects, and the sense of community identity. The communities operate several joint municipal services, including the Sauk Prairie Police Department, the ambulance service, and a water treatment plant. The Sauk Prairie School District serves both villages. Area businesses and service organizations also use

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3780-561: The central character. Derleth wrote many and varied children's works, including biographies meant to introduce younger readers to explorer Jacques Marquette , as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau . Arguably most important among his works for younger readers, however, is the Steve and Sim Mystery Series, also known as the Mill Creek Irregulars series. The ten-volume series, published between 1958 and 1970,

3870-495: The company derived from Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham , Massachusetts , which features in many of his stories. In 1939, Arkham House published The Outsider and Others , a huge collection that contained most of Lovecraft's known short stories. Derleth and Wandrei soon expanded Arkham House and began a regular publishing schedule after its second book, Someone in the Dark , a collection of some of Derleth's own horror stories,

3960-454: The country...and Thoreau's observation that the 'mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ' " A blend of nature writing, philosophic musings, and careful observation of the people and place of "Sac Prairie". Of this work, George Vukelich, author of "North Country Notebook", writes: "Derleth's Walden West is...the equal of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio , Thornton Wilder's Our Town , and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology ." This

4050-441: The daughter of an innkeeper, and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas . Thomas-Alexandre had been born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the mixed-race , natural son of the marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie (Antoine), a French nobleman and général commissaire in the artillery of the colony, and Marie-Cessette Dumas , an enslaved woman of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. The two extant primary documents that state

4140-400: The entire property. Dumas wrote in a wide variety of genres and published a total of 100,000 pages in his lifetime. He made use of his experience, writing travel books after taking journeys, including those motivated by reasons other than pleasure. Dumas travelled to Spain, Italy, Germany, England and French Algeria . After King Louis-Philippe was ousted in a revolt, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte

4230-651: The fictional detective Solar Pons , a pastiche of Arthur Conan Doyle 's Sherlock Holmes . A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow , Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga , a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing. The son of William Julius Derleth and Rose Louise Volk, Derleth grew up in Sauk City, Wisconsin . He

4320-577: The first. He wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie , was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti ) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas , an African slave. At age 14, Thomas-Alexandre

4410-411: The funding from his Guggenheim Fellowship to bind his comic book collection, most recently valued in the millions of dollars, rather than to travel abroad as the award intended.). Derleth's true avocation , however, was hiking the terrain of his native Wisconsin lands, and observing and recording nature with an expert eye. Derleth once wrote of his writing methods, "I write very swiftly, from 750,000 to

4500-462: The genre. While Derleth considered his work in this genre less important than his most serious literary efforts, the compilers of these four anthologies, including Ramsey Campbell, note that the stories still resonate after more than 50 years. In 2009, The Library of America selected Derleth's story The Panelled Room for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales. Derleth also wrote many historical novels, as part of both

4590-524: The government's decision, and Dumas's body was exhumed from its cemetery and put into a new coffin in preparation for the transfer. The proceedings were televised: the new coffin was draped in a blue velvet cloth and carried on a caisson flanked by four mounted Republican Guards costumed as the four Musketeers . It was transported through Paris to the Panthéon. In his speech, Chirac said: With you, we were D'Artagnan, Monte Cristo, or Balsamo, riding along

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4680-417: The horror field as seminal events in the field. For instance, Ramsey Campbell has acknowledged Derleth's encouragement and guidance during the early part of his own writing career, and Kirby McCauley has cited Derleth and Arkham House as an inspiration for his own anthology Dark Forces . Arkham House and Derleth published Dark Carnival , the first book by Ray Bradbury , as well. Brian Lumley cites

4770-670: The importance of Derleth to his own Lovecraftian work, and contends in a 2009 introduction to Derleth's work that he was "...one of the first, finest, and most discerning editors and publishers of macabre fiction." Important as was Derleth's work to rescue H.P. Lovecraft from literary obscurity at the time of Lovecraft's death, Derleth also built a body of horror and spectral fiction of his own; still frequently anthologized. The best of this work, recently reprinted in four volumes of short stories – most of which were originally published in Weird Tales , illustrates Derleth's original abilities in

4860-461: The interest of privacy according to Litersky), and no evidence or acknowledgement of Derleth having a bisexual or homosexual orientation has ever been found in his personal correspondence. Derleth wrote more than 150 short stories and more than 100 books during his lifetime. Derleth wrote an expansive series of novels, short stories, journals, poems, and other works about Sac Prairie . Derleth intended this series to comprise up to 50 novels telling

4950-457: The journey and see his particular Avalon: The Wisconsin River shining among its islands, and the castles of Baron Pierneau and Hercules Dousman. He is a champion and a justification of regionalism. Yet he is also a burly, bounding, bustling, self-confident, opinionated, and highly-sweatered young man with faults so grievous that a melancholy perusal of them may be of more value to apprentices than

5040-566: The library; like Scott, in his Border novels, he gives, rather, the impression of having drunk it in with his mother's milk." Jim Stephens, editor of An August Derleth Reader , (1992), argues: "what Derleth accomplished....was to gather a Wisconsin mythos which gave respect to the ancient fundament of our contemporary life." The author inaugurated the Sac Prairie Saga with four novellas comprising Place of Hawks , published by Loring & Mussey in 1935. At publication, The Detroit News wrote: "Certainly with this book Mr. Derleth may be added to

5130-457: The mid-1930s, Derleth organized a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local school board , served as a parole officer, organized a local men's club and a parent-teacher association . He also lectured in American regional literature at the University of Wisconsin and was a contributing editor of Outdoors Magazine . With longtime friend Donald Wandrei , Derleth founded Arkham House in 1939. Its initial objective

5220-727: The name, including the local newspapers, the Sauk Prairie Star and the Sauk Prairie Eagle , Sauk Prairie Hospital, Sauk Prairie Airport, Sauk Prairie Area Literacy Council, and the Sauk Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce. The villages maintain separate fire departments, sewage collection systems, and libraries. Sauk Prairie is immortalized in the Sac Prairie Saga , a series of novels, short stories, journals, poems, and other works about

5310-404: The nation. Skinner wanted the series to be written by artists, not academicians. Derleth, while not a trained historian, was, according to former Wisconsin state historian William F. Thompson , "...a very competent regional historian who based his historical writing upon research in the primary documents and who regularly sought the help of professionals... ." In the foreword to the 1985 reissue of

5400-463: The peak of her success. With Victor Hugo , Charles Baudelaire , Gérard de Nerval , Eugène Delacroix and Honoré de Balzac , Dumas was a member of the Club des Hashischins , which met monthly to take hashish at a hotel in Paris. Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo contains several references to hashish. On 5 December 1870, Dumas died at the age of 68 of natural causes, possibly a heart attack. He

5490-523: The post-World War I era, in the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Though Derleth never wrote a Pons novel to equal The Hound of the Baskervilles , editor Peter Ruber wrote that "Derleth" produced more than a few Solar Pons stories almost as good as Sir Arthur's, and many that had better plot construction." Although these stories were a form of diversion for Derleth, Ruber, who edited The Original Text Solar Pons Omnibus Edition (2000), argued: "Because

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5580-579: The projected life-story of the region from the 19th century onwards, with analogies to Balzac 's Human Comedy and Proust 's Remembrance of Things Past . This, and other early work by Derleth, made him a well-known figure among the regional literary figures of his time: early Pulitzer Prize winners Hamlin Garland and Zona Gale , as well as Sinclair Lewis, the last both an admirer and critic of Derleth. As Edward Wagenknecht wrote in Cavalcade of

5670-672: The roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting palaces and castles—with you, we dream. Chirac acknowledged the racism that had existed in France and said that the re-interment in the Pantheon had been a way of correcting that wrong, as Alexandre Dumas was enshrined alongside fellow great authors Victor Hugo and Émile Zola . Chirac noted that although France has produced many great writers, none has been so widely read as Dumas. His novels have been translated into nearly 100 languages, and inspired more than 200 motion pictures. In June 2005, Dumas's last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine ,

5760-508: The scholar Claude Schopp lists nearly 40 mistresses. He is known to have fathered at least four children by them: About 1866, Dumas had an affair with Adah Isaacs Menken , an American actress who was less than half his age and at the height of her career. She had performed her sensational role in Mazeppa in London. In Paris, she had a sold-out run of Les Pirates de la Savanne and was at

5850-498: The series, The Moon Tenders , does, in fact, involve a rafting adventure down the Wisconsin River , which led regional writer Jesse Stuart to suggest the novel was one that "older people might read to recapture the spirit and dream of youth." The connection to the Sac Prairie Saga was noted by the Chicago Tribune : "Once again a small midwest community in 1920s is depicted with perception, skill, and dry humor." Derleth

5940-545: The short novel Georges , which addressed some of the issues of race and the effects of colonialism. His response to a man who insulted him about his partial African ancestry has become famous. Dumas said: 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. On 1 February 1840, Dumas married actress Ida Ferrier (born Marguerite-Joséphine Ferrand) (1811–1859). They did not have any children together. Dumas had numerous liaisons with other women;

6030-480: The short versions (50 chapters or less) number eight in total: 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's play

6120-624: The so-called "Valois Romances" are the three that portray the Reign of Queen Marguerite , the last of the Valois. Dumas, however, later wrote four more novels that cover this family and portray similar characters, starting with François or Francis I , his son Henry II , and Marguerite and François II , sons of Henry II and Catherine de' Medici . The Marie Antoinette romances comprise eight novels. The unabridged versions (normally 100 chapters or more) comprise only five books (numbers 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8);

6210-471: The spirit and atmosphere with as much fidelity?" Queen adds, "his choice of the euphonic Solar Pons is an appealing addition to the fascinating lore of Sherlockian nomenclature." Vincent Starrett, in his foreword to the 1964 edition of The Casebook of Solar Pons , wrote that the series is "as sparkling a galaxy of Sherlockian pastiches as we have had since the canonical entertainments came to an end." Despite close similarities to Doyle's creation, Pons lived in

6300-418: The stories were generally of such high quality, they ought to be assessed on their own merits as a unique contribution in the annals of mystery fiction, rather than suffering comparison as one of the endless imitators of Sherlock Holmes." Some of the stories were self-published, through a new imprint called " Mycroft & Moran ", an appellation of humorous significance to Holmesian scholars. For approximately

6390-506: The theatre. As an adult, he used the surname of Dumas, as his father had done as an adult. His first play, Henry III and His Court , produced in 1829 when he was 27 years old, met with acclaim. The next year, his second play, Christine , was equally popular. These successes gave him sufficient income to write full-time. In 1830, Dumas participated in the Revolution that ousted Charles X and replaced him with Dumas's former employer,

6480-491: The unfinished work. It took him years to research it, edit the completed portions, and decide how to treat the unfinished part. Schopp finally wrote the final two-and-a-half chapters, based on the author's notes, to complete the story. Published by Éditions Phébus , it sold 60,000 copies, making it a best seller. Translated into English, it was released in 2006 as The Last Cavalier, and has been translated into other languages. Schopp has since found additional material related to

6570-547: The work by The University of Wisconsin Press , Thompson concluded: "No other writer, of whatever background or training, knew and understood his particular 'corner of the earth' better than August Derleth." Additionally, Derleth wrote a number of volumes of poetry. Three of his collections – Rind of Earth (1942), Selected Poems (1944), and The Edge of Night (1945) – were published by the Decker Press , which also printed

6660-482: The work of other Midwestern poets such as Edgar Lee Masters . Derleth was also the author of several biographies of other writers, including Zona Gale , Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau . Alexandre Dumas, p%C3%A8re Alexandre Dumas (born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie , 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père , was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he

6750-581: Was a correspondent and friend of H. P. Lovecraft – when Lovecraft wrote about "le Comte d'Erlette" in his fiction , it was in homage to Derleth. Derleth invented the term "Cthulhu Mythos" to describe the fictional universe depicted in the series of stories shared by Lovecraft and other writers in his circle. When Lovecraft died in 1937, Derleth and Donald Wandrei assembled a collection of Lovecraft's stories and tried to get them published. Existing publishers showed little interest, so Derleth and Wandrei founded Arkham House in 1939 for that purpose. The name of

6840-523: Was a different man) to a baron who had recently come from Nantes to settle in Saint Domingue. Antoine however retained ownership of Thomas-Alexandre (his only natural son) and took the boy with him to France. There, Thomas-Alexandre received his freedom and a sparse education at a military school, adequate to enable him to join the French army, there being no question of the mixed-race boy being accepted as his father's heir. Thomas-Alexandre did well in

6930-732: Was a series of 70 stories in affectionate pastiche of Sherlock Holmes , whose creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , he admired greatly. The stories feature a Holmes-styled British detective named Solar Pons , of 7B Praed Street in London. These included one published novel as well ( Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey ). The series was greatly admired by such notable writers and critics of mystery and detective fiction as Ellery Queen ( Frederic Dannay ), Anthony Boucher , Vincent Starrett , and Howard Haycraft . In his 1944 volume The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes , Ellery Queen wrote of Derleth's "The Norcross Riddle", an early Pons story: "How many budding authors, not even old enough to vote, could have captured

7020-537: Was an enormous success and launched him on his career. It had 50 performances over the next year, extraordinary at the time. Dumas's works included: Dumas wrote many plays and adapted several of his novels as dramas. In the 1840s, he founded the Théâtre Historique , located on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. The building was used after 1852 by the Opéra National (established by Adolphe Adam in 1847). It

7110-477: Was buried at his birthplace of Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne. His death was overshadowed by the Franco-Prussian War . Changing literary fashions decreased his popularity. In the late 20th century, scholars such as Reginald Hamel and Claude Schopp have caused a critical reappraisal and new appreciation of his art, as well as finding lost works. In 1970, upon the centenary of his death,

7200-779: Was educated in local parochial and public high school. Derleth wrote his first fiction at age 13. He was interested most in reading, and he made three trips to the library a week. He would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 volumes later on in life). Some of his biggest influences were Ralph Waldo Emerson 's essays, Walt Whitman , H. L. Mencken 's The American Mercury , Samuel Johnson 's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia , Alexandre Dumas , Edgar Allan Poe , Walter Scott , and Henry David Thoreau 's Walden . Forty rejected stories and three years later, according to anthologist Jim Stephens, he sold his first story, "Bat's Belfry", to Weird Tales magazine in 1926. Derleth wrote throughout his four years at

7290-444: Was elected president. As Bonaparte disapproved of the author, Dumas fled in 1851 to Brussels, Belgium, which was also an effort to escape his creditors. In about 1859, he moved to Russia , where French was the second language of the elite and his writings were enormously popular. Dumas spent two years in Russia and visited St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Astrakhan, Baku, and Tbilisi. He published travel books about Russia. In March 1861,

7380-681: Was essentially his own fiction; S. T. Joshi refers to the "posthumous collaborations" as marking the beginning of "perhaps the most disreputable phase of Derleth's activities". Dirk W. Mosig , S. T. Joshi, and Richard L. Tierney were dissatisfied with Derleth's invention of the term Cthulhu Mythos (Lovecraft himself used Yog-Sothothery ) and his presentation of Lovecraft's fiction as having an overall pattern reflecting Derleth's own Christian world view, which they contrast with Lovecraft's depiction of an amoral universe. However, Robert M. Price points out that while Derleth's tales are distinct from Lovecraft's in their use of hope and his depiction of

7470-464: Was followed eight years later by Return to Walden West , a work of similar quality, but with a more noticeable environmentalist edge to the writing, notes critic Norbert Blei . A close literary relative of the Sac Prairie Saga was Derleth's Wisconsin Saga , which comprises several historical novels. Detective fiction represented another substantial body of Derleth's work. Most notable among this work

7560-543: Was like a windmill – once set in motion, you would never know when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself." Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (later known as Alexandre Dumas) was born in 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne , in Picardy , France. He had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine (born 1794) and Louise-Alexandrine (1796–1797). Their parents were Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret,

7650-421: Was published in 1941. Following Lovecraft's death, Derleth wrote a number of stories based on fragments and notes left by Lovecraft. These were published in Weird Tales and later in book form, under the byline "H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth", with Derleth calling himself a "posthumous collaborator". This practice has raised objections in some quarters that Derleth simply used Lovecraft's name to market what

7740-470: Was published in France featuring the Battle of Trafalgar . Dumas described a fictional character killing Lord Nelson (Nelson was shot and killed by an unknown sniper). Writing and publishing the novel serially in 1869, Dumas had nearly finished it before his death. It was the third part of the Sainte-Hermine trilogy. Claude Schopp, a Dumas scholar, noticed a letter in an archive in 1990 that led him to discover

7830-480: Was renamed the Théâtre Lyrique in 1851. Dumas was a prolific writer of nonfiction. He wrote journal articles on politics and culture and books on French history. His lengthy Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine ( Great Dictionary of Cuisine ) was published posthumously in 1873, and several editions of it are still in print today. A combination of encyclopaedia and cookbook, it reflects Dumas's interests as both

7920-449: Was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career. Alexandre acquired work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans , then as a writer, a career that led to his early success. Decades later, after the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. He moved to Russia for

8010-567: Was the best known. It was not until the late twentieth century that his role was fully understood. Dumas wrote the short novel Georges (1843), which uses ideas and plots later repeated in The Count of Monte Cristo . Maquet took Dumas to court to try to get authorial recognition and a higher rate of payment for his work. He was successful in getting more money, but not a by-line. Dumas's novels were so popular that they were soon translated into English and other languages. His writing earned him

8100-583: Was to publish the works of H. P. Lovecraft, with whom Derleth had corresponded since his teenage years. At the same time, he began teaching a course in American Regional Literature at the University of Wisconsin. In 1941, he became literary editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison , a post he held until his resignation in 1960. His hobbies included fencing, swimming, chess, philately and comic-strips (Derleth reportedly used

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