Abstract: In the nineteenth century, caricaturists poked fun at Dumas, and journalists bolstered these claims by slipping short, satirical articles into their pages that highlighted his immoderate ego, his romantic excesses, and his bulimic output. The writer, who wanted to be in the limelight and amuse the public, fed into this gossip himself, revealing parts of his private life and sharing his witticisms. That is how the “jokesters” turned him into a mythical personality who, for readers, became the real Dumas, irresistibly sympathetic.
