My dear Victor. Autograph letter signed by ALEXANDRE DUMAS to VICTOR HUGO

  

Precious testimony to the friendship between the two giants. Paris, May 20, 1836 - A quarto page on a double leaf with autograph address. Splendid calligraphy by Alexandre Dumas of Victor Hugo’s name in the address.

Large size: 23 x 31 cm unfolded leaves (single page: 23 x 16 cm). In May 1836, Dumas achieved undeniable popular success at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin with Don Juan de Marana, which premiered on April 30. His main goal was then to return to the Comédie-Française (Théâtre Français). The meeting at the actress’s luxurious villa in Neuilly was part of Dumas’s courtship of the actress in hopes that she would accept his future projects. Dumas wanted to impress and move onto the same ground as Victor Hugo, then master of romantic verse.

The play was finally staged on December 26, 1837 at the Théâtre-Français. Dumas spent fortunes on sets and costumes to recreate imperial Rome. Despite the presence of Mademoiselle Mars, the play was received coolly and remained on the bill for only about twenty performances. It was a commercial and critical failure for Dumas, but the dawn of greater fame and his biggest successes to come with the rise of his future serialized novels. In that same year, 1836, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, both 34 years old, maintained close relations within the framework of their theatrical projects and worked together to obtain from the Duke of Orléans the privilege of creating a theater devoted to the Romantic repertoire (which would become the Théâtre de la Renaissance). In November 1836, Dumas even wrote to Hugo to inform him of his efforts with M. Guizot regarding this theater project: “We must therefore do nothing one without the other, but everything one through the other and one with the other. The autograph letters between the two men are particularly sought after. Tomorrow, Sunday, we have a day off and an appointment at M. Mars’s in Neuilly, so it is impossible to accept your kind invitation. Any other day this week that suits you - at your orders. [On the left leaf, in the hand of Alexandre Dumas].

Below: the first photograph of Alexandre Dumas, 1851, daguerreotype. Below: Victor Hugo by Étienne Carjat in 1876.

Next: Mademoiselle Mars, porcelain copy after Gérard’s painting by Aimée Perlet, 1823.