num_pages: 528
description: The Count of Monte-Cristo was inspired by an anecdote from the Parisian police archives, a pearl of a story, Dumas called it, 'A rough, shapeless pearl, of no value, waiting for its jeweller'. Edmond Dantè's betrayal, his incarceration in the fortress-prison of If, his search for Abbé Faria's hidden treasure, and his reappearance, now fabulously rich, as the brooding, Byronic and vengeful Count of Monte-Cristo - these are the bare outlines of a book which Thackeray, for one, found impossible to put down. Dumas set his magnificent novel of L'action et l'amour in nineteenth-century metropolitan Paris with interludes in Marseilles and Rome. In it he gave free rein to the sensational - hashish-smoking, vampirism and sex - and to his interest in travel, classical myth, the orient, human psychology and disguises. The Count of Monte-Cristo (1844-46) is one of the great popular novels of all time, and a landmark in the development of modern popular fiction.
language: English
title: The Count of Monte Cristo
titlecomplete: The Count of Monte Cristo
characters: Giovanni Bertuccio, Baron Danglars, Mercédès Mondego, Benedetto, Vassiliki Kontaxi, Eugénie Danglars, Gérard de Villefort, Luigi Vampa, Abbé Faria, Maximilien Morrel, Gaspar Kadrus, Fernand Mondego, Valentine de Villefort, Edmond Dantès, Noirtier de Villefort, Franz d'Épinay, Haydée, Albert de Morcerf, Pierre Morrel, Hermine Danglars, Héloïse de Villefort, Ali Pasha of Ioannina
genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Novels, Literature, Classic Literature, Romance, Classics, Adventure, Fiction, France
ratings_count: 889306
places: Paris, Marseille, France
publisher: Penguin Books