A biography as spiced and as romantic as Dumas' own novels. He lived a broadside of earthly human nature. He fell in love twice in a single afternoon and split his breeches at the same time. He won his first duel with an icicle. At the age of 22 he was the father of a natural son. He married at 40-and left his wife immediately. His collected works total 1200 volumes. He exhausted many collaborators. Mr. Gorman has taken infinite pains to make his book accurate. He studied and collected unusual material for a year in France; then spent a year in the writing. With a frankness that is as Gallic as its subject, he portrays the amoral life of Alexandre Dumas who conquered women as easily as he conquered the French stage and the French field of the novel. Harry Hansen in The World.