The Count of Monte Cristo: Abridged Edition

Alexandre Dumas

Mar 2012 · Courier Corporation

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"A piece of perfect storytelling." — Robert Louis Stevenson. First published in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo remains one of literature's greatest adventures. Based on actual events, this sweeping historical romance, considered to be Dumas' finest work, recounts the story of Edmond Dantès, a gallant young sailor whose life takes a bitter turn when, during the final days of Napoleon's reign, he is falsely accused of treason and condemned to lifelong imprisonment. After languishing for many years in a fetid dungeon, he makes his dramatic escape. In a labyrinthine tale plump with themes of justice, vengeance, lost love, and mercy and forgiveness, Dantès is now free to play out his elaborate plans of revenge on those who betrayed him.

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After an idle youth, Alexandre Dumas went to Paris and spent some years writing. A volume of short stories and some farces were his only productions until 1927, when his play Henri III (1829) became a success and made him famous. It was as a storyteller rather than a playwright, however, that Dumas gained enduring success. Perhaps the most broadly popular of French romantic novelists, Dumas published some 1,200 volumes during his lifetime. These were not all written by him, however, but were the works of a body of collaborators known as "Dumas & Co." Some of his best works were plagiarized. For example, The Three Musketeers (1844) was taken from the Memoirs of Artagnan by an eighteenth-century writer, and The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) from Penchet's A Diamond and a Vengeance. At the end of his life, drained of money and sapped by his work, Dumas left Paris and went to live at his son's villa, where he remained until his death.