As a journalist, caricaturist, political agitator, balloonist, and novelist, the charismatic Nadar was well-positioned to befriend many of the most important cultural figures in mid-19th-century France. His most engaging and insightful photographs portrayed those with whom he shared artistic passions or leftist political views and those he could set at ease before the camera with affable conversation. Among his idols since childhood was Alexandre Dumas, the famed author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, whose first novel had been published by Nadar’s father.