The Count of Monte Cristo is a novel written by Alexandre Dumas. Released in 1844, it is the story of the unjust imprisonment of Edmond Dantes, and how he (eventually) got revenge on those who imprisoned him in the infamous Château d’If, an island prison.
Characters[]
- Edmond Dantes
- The Count of Monte Cristo
- Lord Wilmore
- The Abbe Busoni
- English Chief Clerk of the Thomson and French banking firm
- Sinbad the Sailor
- Monsieur Zaccone
- Count de Morcerf/Fernand Mondego
- Mercédès
- Maxamillian
- Villefort
- Danglars
- Valentine
- Abbé Faria
- Giovanni Bertuccio
- Ali
- Jacopo
- Caderousse
- Morrel
- Haydée
- Luigi Vampa
- Madame de Villefort
- Eugénie
- Noirtier
Publisher's Summary[]
modern-day Penguin reprint
Dashing young Edmond Dantes has everything: a fine reputation, an appointment as captain of a ship, and the heart of a beautiful woman. But his perfect life is shattered when three jealous friends conspire to destroy him.
Falsely accused of a political crime, Edmond Dantes is locked away for life in the infamous prison at the French Chateau d'If. But it is there that he learns of a vast hidden treasure.
After fourteen years of hopeless imprisonment, Dantes makes his daring escape and follows his secret map to untold fortune. Disguised now as the mysterious and powerful Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond seeks out his enemies—and nothing will stand in the way of his just revenge.
Filled with thrilling episodes of betrayal, romance, and revenge, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the greatest adventure stories ever written.
Full Summary[]
In 1815, 19-year old Edmond Dantès, the young and successful merchant sailor recently granted his own command by his dying captain Leclère, returns to Marseille to marry his beautiful fiancée Mercédès, who is 16. Leclère, unknown to Dantès, is a supporter of the exiled Napoléon I, and has charged Dantès to deliver two objects: a package to a man named Maréchal Bertrand (exiled along with Napoleon Bonaparte on the isle of Elba), and a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris.
On the eve of his wedding to Mercédès, Fernand (Mercédès' cousin and a rival for her affections) and Danglars (who is jealous of Dantès' rapid rise to captain), upon the suggestion of Caderousse (a jealous neighbor of Dantès), send an anonymous note to the authorities accusing Dantès of being a Bonapartist traitor. Together, these three men draft a letter accusing Dantès of treason. There is some truth to their accusations: as a favor to his recently deceased captain, Dantès is carrying a letter from Napoleon (who is currently residing on the isle of Elba) to a group of Bonapartist sympathizers in Paris, but he does not yet know of the letter's contents. Or of the true meaning of what comes with possessing it. Though Dantès himself has no political leanings, the undertaking is enough to implicate him for treason.
On the day of his wedding, Dantès is arrested for his alleged crimes. The authorities raid the merry wedding party and drag a very confused Dantès out, refusing to tell him of his crime. Fernand manages to slip out of the party as the arrest happens, so that he is not there. After the authorities leave with the accused, the rest of the party debates over what could of happened, for they all see Dantès as a wonderful, selfless person who could have done nothing wrong.
He is then taken to the local jail, where he resides for a time, and then is taken out to meet the deputy crown prosecutor. Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, while initially sympathetic to Dantès, chooses to destroy the letter from Elba when he discovers that it is addressed to his father, who is a Bonapartist. Dantès still has no idea what the letter contains (no one does), nor does he fully comprehend his crime. When destroying the letter, Villefort does it in a way to hide the fact that he is doing it to protect his father, and pretends that he is doing it to protect the confused Dantès. In order to silence Dantès, he condemns him without trial to life imprisonment.
The deputy public prosecutor, Villefort, sees through the plot to frame Dantès and is prepared to set him free. At the last moment, though, Dantès jeopardizes his freedom by revealing the name of the man to whom he is supposed to deliver Napoleon’s letter. The man, Noirtier, is Villefort’s father. Terrified that any public knowledge of his father’s treasonous activities will thwart his own ambitions, Villefort decides to send Dantès to prison for life. Despite the entreaties of Monsieur Morrel, Dantès’s kind and honest boss, Dantès is sent to the infamous Château d’If, where the most dangerous political prisoners are kept.
During his fourteen years imprisonment in the Château d'If, Dantès befriends the Abbé Faria ("The Mad Priest"), a fellow prisoner who is trying to tunnel his way to freedom, and who claims knowledge of a massive treasure and continually offers to reward the guards well if they release him. Faria gives Dantès an extensive education. He also explains to Dantès how Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort would each have had their own reasons for wanting Dantès in prison. After years of friendship, and knowing himself to be close to death, Faria tells Dantès the location of the treasure, on Monte Cristo.
When Faria dies, Dantès uses his burial sack to stage an escape to a nearby island. Dantès manages to swim all the way to a nearby island that is empty of all human life except for a few shipwrecked sailors, which allows him to have a good reason for being rescued. Fortunately, he is rescued. The crew of the ship allow Dantès to join them, and he is able to get food, water, clothing, and a small amount of money in exchange for working on the ship. Dantès manages to talk the captain into dropping him off at the island of Monte Cristo and leaving him there for a week. After several months of working with the smugglers, he goes to Monte Cristo.
Dantès fakes a head injury, and convinces the (concerned) smugglers to temporarily leave him on Monte Cristo so that he can "recover," and then makes his way to the hiding place of the treasure. After recovering the treasure, he returns to Marseille, where he learns that his father has died in poverty. He buys a yacht, hides the rest of the treasure on board and buys both the island of Monte Cristo and the title of Count from the Tuscan government.
Dantès then travels to the island of Monte Cristo, and finds Faria’s enormous treasure hidden beneath a fake rock. He considers his fortune a gift from God, given to him for the sole purpose of rewarding those who have tried to help him and, more important, punishing those who have hurt him. Disguising himself as an Italian priest who answers to the name of Abbé Busoni, he travels back to Marseilles and visits Caderousse, who is now struggling to make a living as an innkeeper. From Caderousse he learns the details of the plot to frame him.
In addition, Dantès learns that his father has died of grief in his absence, and that Mercédès has married Fernand Mondego. Most frustrating, he learns that both Danglars and Mondego have become rich and powerful, and are living happily in Paris. As a reward for this information, and for Caderousse’s apparent regret over the part he played in Dantès’s downfall, Dantès gives Caderousse a valuable diamond.
Before leaving Marseilles, Dantès anonymously saves Morrel from financial ruin by appearing as an English gentleman who works for an English banking firm, and gives Morrel more time. Right when Morrel is about to commit suicide, his daughter runs in with a money pouch that she was instructed to go get by a mysterious "Sinbad the Sailor." This money pouch is enough to pay off all of Morrel’s debts with some left over.
Ten years later, Dantès emerges in Rome, calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo. He seems to be all knowing and unstoppable. In Rome Dantès ingratiates himself to Albert de Morcerf, son of Fernand Mondego and Mercédès, by saving him from bandits. In return for the favor, Albert introduces Dantès to Parisian society. None of his old cohorts recognize the mysterious count as Edmond Dantès, though Mercédès does. Dantès is thus able to insinuate himself effortlessly into the lives of Danglars, Mondego, and Villefort. Armed with damning knowledge about each of them that he has gathered over the past decade, Dantès sets an elaborate scheme of revenge into motion.
Mondego, now known as the Count de Morcerf, is the first to be punished. Dantès exposes Morcerf’s darkest secret: Morcerf made his fortune by betraying his former patron, the Greek vizier Ali Pacha, and he then sold Ali Pacha’s wife and daughter into slavery. Ali Pacha’s daughter, Haydée, who has lived with Dantès ever since he bought her freedom seven years earlier, testifies against Morcerf in front of the senate, irreversibly ruining his good name. Ashamed by Morcerf’s treachery, Albert and Mercédès flee, leaving their tainted fortune behind. Morcerf commits suicide soon after.
Villefort’s punishment comes slowly and in several stages. Dantès first takes advantage of Madame de Villefort’s murderous intent, subtly tutoring her in the uses of poison. As Madame de Villefort wreaks her havoc, killing off each member of the household in turn, Dantès plants the seeds for yet another public exposé. In court, it is revealed that Villefort is guilty of attempted infanticide, as he tried to bury his illegitimate baby while it was still alive almost as soon as it was born. Believing that everyone he loves is dead, and knowing that he will soon have to answer severe criminal charges, Villefort goes insane.
For his revenge on Danglars, Dantès simply plays upon his enemy’s greed. He opens various false credit accounts with Danglars that cost him vast amounts of money. He also manipulates Danglars’s unfaithful and dishonest wife, costing Danglars more money. While doing this, he helps Danglars’s daughter, Eugénie, run away with her female companion after foiling the attempt by Danglars and his wife to get her engaged to a man who is then (suddenly) revealed to be a possible criminal. The rumor is spread by the one and only Dantès, who is in his Count of Monte Cristo character. As chaos spreads throughout the house, Eugénie and her companion lock her bedroom door and flee out the window with their trunks.
Finally, when Danglars is nearly broke and about to flee without paying any of his creditors, Dantès has the Italian bandit Luigi Vampa kidnap him, and relieve him of his remaining money. This is done by Vampa and his bandits holding Danglars in a small cell. When he is hungry, thirsty, or wants a pillow, he is required to pay an absurd amount of money. Slowly, Danglars becomes more and more poor, hungry, and thirsty. Finally, he gives in. Fortunately, Dantès spares Danglars’s life, but leaves him penniless and in despair as punishment.
Meanwhile, as these acts of vengeance play out, Dantès also tries to complete one more act of goodness. Dantès wishes to help the brave and honorable Maximilian Morrel, the son of the kind shipowner, so he hatches an elaborate plot to save Maximilian’s fiancée, Valentine Villefort, from her murderous stepmother, to ensure that the couple will be truly happy forever. Dantès tells few of his plan for safety reasons.
Dantès gives Valentine a pill that makes her appear dead, and then carries her off to the island of Monte Cristo after her supposed corpse is found by her father, the family doctor, and Maximilian. The only person aware of this besides Dantès is her loving grandfather, Noirtier, who is paralyzed and therefore unable to accidentally spoil the hidden plot.
For a month, Dantès allows Maximilian to believe that Valentine is dead, which causes Maximilian to long for death himself. To keep him alive, Dantès makes him sign an agreement saying that for exactly one month, Maximilian will not harm himself. Once that month passes, Dantès has no interest in what Maximilian chooses to do with his life.
On the last day of the agreement, Dantès takes the depressed Maximilian to his hideaway, and then reveals that Valentine is alive. Dantès too ultimately finds happiness, when he allows himself to fall in love with the adoring and beautiful Haydée. Together, Dantès and Haydée run off together to enjoy themselves, leaving the desperate Maximilian to his thoughts. Still not realizing that his love is alive, Maximilian attempts to take his own life with a dinner knife. Fortunately for him, Valentine steps in at just the right moment and stops him, assuring him that, in fact, she is perfectly alive and well. The two reunite joyfully. Having known the depths of despair, Maximilian is now able to experience the heights of ecstasy.
When Maximilian and Valentine go to thank Dantès, they find a letter addressed to them that ends with, “[U]ntil the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—'Wait and hope.'” Along with this letter, there is a ship and crew waiting to bring the two lovers to meet Valentine's grandfather, the paralyzed Noirtier, who gives his blessing to the two grateful lovers.
Quotes[]
- "Goodby for the present."
- "What a singular being you are. You refuse to take part in anything." (to Edmund Dantès)
- "Laugh as much as you want. I am in love."
- "Oh, the wickedness of man is very great." -Edmund Dantès
- "When a churchman is killed, it should be with something other than a log."
- "You are 3/4ths drunk. Finish the bottle and you will be completely so."
- "You talk like a noodle, my friend." -Edmund Dantès
- "Until the day that God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is be contained in these two words: wait and hope." -Edmund Dantès
- "I hope the world will not call me cowardly for doing what my conscience dictates. Come. Finish your cup of coffee. The history is over." -Edmund Dantès
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | 1862 | A major novel of French literature with similar themes |
| Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | 1878 | A novel with similar themes |
| Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | 1861 | A novel from the Victorian era with similar themes |
| Bleak House | Charles Dickens | 1853 | A long novel from the Victorian era with similar themes |
Sources[]
- The book on Project Gutenberg
- Sparknotes
- Wikipedia
- Revenge ABC Wiki
- Library website