Alexandre Dumas (1824-95) was a pioneer of the Romantic theatre in France, for which he wrote a series of colourful historical dramas, although it is as a novelist that he is best known today. His works include The Three Musketeers (1844-5), La Reine Margot (1845) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-5).Robin Buss is a journalist and translator. For Penguin, his translations include works by Sartre, Zola and, most recently, The Plague by Camus.