French writer, Alexandre Dumas, was born on July 24, 1802 to Marie-Louise Elisabeth Labouret and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in the department of Aisne in Picardy, France.  His father, born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), was a French nobleman general commissaire and his mother a slave of Afro-Caribbean decent.  Alexandre's father died of cancer when Alexandre was just 4 years old.  Although Alexandre's mother was left as a poor widow with little means to give him an education, she surely knew how to tell a great story.  She fueled her son's imagination with lively stories of his father's adventures in the military.  Dumas read often and subsequently taught himself Spanish.  As a 20 year old young writer, he moved to Paris, France and began working as a scribe.  While Dumas was working as a scribe, he began writing articles, plays, and novels.  At the age of 27, his first play, Henry III and His Courts, was published and produced, giving him much fame.  He then began writing prolifically full-time and became, arguably, the most prominent French writer of the 19th century.  

While he is most famous for his novels The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, he is an acclaimed author of a large catalog of literary works, including The Corsican Brothers.  His pieces have been translated into approximately 100 languages and still serve as classic building blocks for budding literature enthusiasts.  

My, my, what a royal pen. 

Sources: photo--http://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexandre-Dumas-pere//information--http://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexandre-Dumas-pere; http://www.biography.com/people/alexandre-dumas-9280725