A man behind the scenes, Auguste Maquet assisted Alexandre Dumas in writing many works, including the Musketeers trilogy.
Writing for Glory
Born on 13 September 1813, Auguste Maquet came from a wealthy family. He attended university, earned a doctorate in literature, and initially aimed for a career in teaching. A friend of Théophile Gautier, he frequented romantic literary salons.
In November 1838 Maquet gave his friend Gérard de Nerval a play, A Carnival Evening, which Nerval felt needed revision. He proposed that Dumas revise it. Dumas accepted, rewrote it as Bathilde but did not claim authorship. To thank him, Maquet gave Dumas a historical novel manuscript which Dumas rewrote under the new title of Chevalier d’Harmental and published in Le Siècle to immediate success. The following year Maquet published another novel, Sylvandire, under his own name.
The Three Musketeers: A Winning Partnership
The Three Musketeers was their third collaboration. Maquet wrote a preliminary draft with historical research, both worked out a common outline, Maquet wrote the first draft chapter by chapter with Dumas commenting and guiding the plot, and then Dumas wrote the final version, enriching the text with his style and sometimes rewriting entire passages.
The Time of Lawsuits
Their collaboration ended in December 1850. While Dumas accepted the idea of sharing credit for his plays, he refused to do so for his novels. In 1858 Maquet sued to recover money owed. He was considered a creditor and received 25% of the royalties in exchange for renouncing authorship claims.
Maquet continued writing and published a number of critically acclaimed works. He died on 8 January 1888. After his death, a unique copy of The Three Musketeers was found in his library bearing the inscription: The Three Musketeers by A. Dumas and A. Maquet.
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