The Count of Monte Cristo
By Alexandre Dumas
The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815–1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. It begins on the day that Napoleon left his first island of exile, Elba, starting the Hundred Days when Napoleon returned to power. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book, an adventure story centrally concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness.
Before he can marry his fiancée Mercédès, Edmond Dantès, a French nineteen-year-old first mate of the Pharaon, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the Château d’If, a grim island fortress off Marseille. A fellow prisoner, Abbé Faria, correctly deduces that romantic rival Fernand Mondego, envious crewmate Danglars, and double-dealing magistrate De Villefort are responsible. Throughout their long imprisonment, Faria educates Dantès and tells him of a cache of treasure he found. After Faria dies, Dantès escapes and finds the treasure. As the powerful and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo, he enters the fashionable Parisian world of the 1830s to avenge himself.
Genre: History | Pirate Tales
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Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870, also known as Alexandre Dumas père, was a French novelist and playwright.
Biography
His works have been translated into many languages, and he is one of the most widely-read French authors. His historical adventure novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, were initially published as serials. Since the early 20th century, his novels have been adapted into nearly 200 films. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing successfully produced plays.
He wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an enslaved African. At age 14, Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career.
Alexandre acquired work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, a job which led to early success. Decades later, after the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. He moved to Russia for a few years and then to Italy. 1861 he founded and published the newspaper L’Indépendent, which supported Italian unification. He returned to Paris in 1864.
Alexandre Dumas
