Alexandre Dumas  born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie  24 July 1802 also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer. His works have been translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas' last novel,The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005, becoming a bestseller. It was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. In this seventh volume of his Celebrated Crimes, Dumas tells the three tales: of the brutal excesses of Ali Pacha; the tale of the Countess of Saint Geran;and of Murat, whose courage became a legend in the days of the French revolution. Few men have understood themselves better or been on better terms with the orbit of their existence than Ali Pacha, and as the personality of an individual is all the more striking, in proportion as it reflects the manners and ideas of the time and country in which he has lived, so the figure of Ali Pacha stands out, if not one of the most brilliant, at least one of the most singular in contemporary history.