Why did I wait so long to read Alexandre Dumas? One of literature’s all-time best-sellers, he had to be doing something right. The grandson of a French nobleman and an African slave, Dumas (1802-70) was as unlikely as one of his own plots, and no less successful.

He spent money as fast as he made it, much of it on his mistresses. He is said to have written 200 books, although it’s hard to keep track as they traverse so many genres, and were often serialised on first publication. One of the secrets of his productivity was his buddy, Auguste Maquet, who did the historical research, laying out plot and characters. Dumas’s role was to whip up the ingredients into a fabulous confection for readers to devour.