DUMAS pere, despite all that has been written about him,
re- mains an excellent subject for a biographer with any talent, so packed with incident was his life, so dynamic his character, and so variegated his writings. Mr. Todd has, however, managed to compile around his fascinating life a book that is boring almost from its first page to its last. His book, which lacks either bibliography or footnotes, is a mere digest from previous publications and contains no new information ; the successive phases of Dumas' career are chronicled in a flat and pedestrian prose and set down moreover in a vacuum—there is no indication ;hat Mr. Todd knows anything of the historical background to Dumas' life ; nowhere—apart from a couple of schoolboy jokes about sex—is the narrative in any way livened with humour. Only to someone entirely ignorant of Dunnt life could the book be recommended, and it is questionable whether for such a reader the article in the Encyclopaetlig Briumnica would not be preferable. Mr. G. R. Pearce's miniature biography is certainly much better value.
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