Read this if you…
- want maybe the greatest, most fun plot of all time
- want the coolest main character ever, he's just so cool
- want a mammoth book that feels easy to read
Skip this if you…
- hate fun
- can't commit to a 1000 page book (you should try anyways, its great)
- are expecting overly deep takeaways, it's pure fun
Why It Matters
Dumas wrote the ultimate revenge story, and 180 years on nobody has topped it. The novel set the template, wrongful imprisonment, patient scheming, elaborate payback, that every revenge thriller since has borrowed from. It is also a genuine page-turner at 1,200 pages, which is its own kind of feat.
The 
Take
Total masterpiece. Careful, expansive, fast moving plot. One of the best made plots I can remember. The character of the count of Monte cristo himself I s just awesome. Larger than life. One of my all time favorite characters.
Where to go next
- The Arabian Nights by Anonymous. The Count of Monte Cristo built on it. - Edmond Dantès reinvents himself as a Sinbad the Sailor — the chapter is named for it — and his treasure cave is pure Ali Baba - *The Count of Monte Cristo* borrows the *Nights*' machinery of disguise, sudden riches, and patient, ornate vengeance; a visitor even calls his retreat "something out of *The Arabian Nights*" - Dumas knew the tales through Galland's French translation; reading them first shows you the fabulist engine humming under the realism
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. The Count of Monte Cristo shaped it. - Verne met Dumas in 1849 and the two became close friends — and Dumas's vengeful exile Edmond Dantès is the model behind Verne's Captain Nemo - Nemo's isolation, his hidden fortune, his revenge nursed in self-imposed banishment: Dantès transplanted from a Mediterranean island to the deep sea - Verne later called another of his heroes "the Monte Cristo of my Extraordinary Voyages" — the debt was conscious
Depicted in Art
The old Italian abbé in monk's robes, gaunt and bearded, standing amid the books and instruments of his cell.
Édouard Riou, 1887
Edmond Dantès, having escaped the Château d'If, clings to a sea-battered rock in a tattered shirt, gazing out across the Mediterranean.
François-Louis Français, 1846
Franz, intoxicated on the Count's hashish, slumps among Eastern cushions as ghostly nude figures swirl out of the air above him.
Édouard Riou, 1887
Gendarmes seize a stunned Dantès at his betrothal feast; Mercédès and the wedding party recoil from the table.
Édouard Riou, 1887
A rocky islet rising sheer from the Tyrrhenian Sea under a moody sky, the smugglers' boat approaching its shore.
Édouard Riou, 1887
The fortress prison rises stark from the rocky islet, seen from offshore at twilight, with a small boat approaching the landing.
Édouard Riou, 1887
Recommended Editions
Robin Buss
Penguin Classics · 2003
Buss was the first to translate every word Dumas wrote. Earlier English versions cut roughly a quarter, mostly the patient slow-burn that makes the revenge actually hit. Vivid, fast, and complete.
Please support us by purchasing through these links, at no extra cost to you!
Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words: wait and hope.”
“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—'Wait and hope.'”
More by Alexandre Dumas
- The Three Musketeers
1844 · Adventure