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Alexandre Dumas, fils was born in Paris, France, the illegitimate child of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay (1794 - 1868), a dressmaker, and novelist Alexandre Dumas. During 1831 his father legally recognized him and ensured that the young Dumas received the best education possible at the Institution Goubaux and the Collège Bourbon. At that time, the law allowed the elder Dumas to take the child away from his mother. Her agony inspired Dumas fils to write about tragic female characters.
During 1844 Dumas moved to Saint-Germainen-Laye to live with his father. There, he met Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan who would be the inspiration for his romantic novel The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux camélias), wherein Duplessis was named Marguerite Gauthier. Adapted into a play, it was titled Camille in English and became the basis for Verdi’s 1853 opera, la Traviata, Duplessis undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valery.