|
A popular bestseller ever since its publication in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great page-turning thrillers of all time. Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Dumas's grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsley accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. 'Better than any other novelist, Dumas knew how to share and satisfy the passions of the masses,' wrote biographer and critic Andre Maurois. 'Like them, he loved force, justice, and adventure; like them, he divided humanity into heroes and villains...He knew how to tell a story like nobody else; under his pen the most banal factual account took on the look of an epic. Is not that a form of genius?'
|