The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Links may lead to spoilers

The story of The Count of Monte Cristo is a marvelous adventure that likely rates with Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Edmond Dantès is Dumas's protagonist. There are a number of antagonists and contagonists. Indeed, the number of significant characters in this volume challenges my ever more feeble memory.

Dantes is a young and talented sailor, but ignorant of politics. His primary concern is his aged father and his soon to be fiance, Mercedes. Nothing is of much importance to him beyond father, fiance, and perhaps the possibility that M. Morrel may promote him to Captain of the Pharaon, which would greatly enhance his future prospects for providing for his father and future wife. Unfortunately young is often naive. Additionally, happiness and success too often produce enemies unknown. Such as Dangler's, the supercargo on the ship Pharaon, which Dante's sails home to Marseilles after her Captain Leclere unexpectedly dies on their voyage to Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.


Dante's cowardly enemies devise ways to spoil his happiness and success, and enhance their greed. All the efforts are veiled and ultimately difficult to trace back to the culprits who are successful in causing Dantès to be unjustly imprisoned. For over a decade the unjust treatment he endures never gains a hearing, let alone a trial for the vague accusations of his crimes.

Part of the joy of reading The Count of Monte Cristo is the irony of trivia becoming overwhelmingly significant, and the moral and ethical implications at nearly every decision made by every character. Dumas does not neglect the reality of good decisions gone bad, and bad intentions geared toward harm turn out to be blessings beyond imagining. This is a joy to read for entertainment, but also deeply philosophical, challenging the reader's assumptions of good, evil, and many other ideas and ideals we blindly assume are the truth of reality, only to discover what one believes may not have a bit of influence in the real world.

Dumas may clearly create heroes and villains, but he takes care to challenge you to believe either is good or evil.

Alexandre Dumas is an excellent writer. I failed to discover the translator of my copy. I'm confident it was written in French. So joy to the translator for their excellent work in making The Count of Monte Cristo available in English. Alexandre Dumas is also the author of historical novels of Celebrated Crimes in 7 volumes which includes the Borgias of infamous papal crimes, Mary Stuart, the German aristocracies, Joan of Naples, the infamous man in the Iron Mask, et. al. He is also the author of the assorted volumes of D'Artagnan Romances. Several volumes that include the Three Musketeers.

I read the ebook and listened to the audiobook well-read by David Clarke in approximately 18 sittings between May 17, 2019, and July 3, 2019. I highly recommend this five star volume and believe it to be among the top 15 books every soul should read in their lifetime. I'm regret I waited so long before I read it.

Bonus:
The Count of Monte Cristo Audiobook: Amazon did sell a pirate copy of this where the Librovox announcement was cut and someone other than David Clarke was given credit for the narration. Notice the 99¢ audiobook is no longer available from Amazon.

The Count of Monte Cristo e-book Online

Dumas's d'Artagnan Romances (Includes The Three Musketeers)

Dumas's Celebrated Crimes (Complete)

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