Section One: Text abridgements meant for Teens and Adults
Section One: Text abridgements meant for Teens and Adults
This section describes and reviews the various text abridgements of the novel, intended for teens and adults. Basically, the editors had approached the problem of reducing the original novel's length in several different ways:
- Removing a few lines or paragraphs within chapters
- Reducing chapters to summary paragraphs
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Hacking out entire chapters and removing some subplots and characters
It's pretty consistent that certain in-book events were considered "disposable" by some editors and not by others. The following bits are the ones that are often removed:
- Dantes saves his old friends, the Morrel family, from financial ruin.
- Franz D'Epinay and Albert de Morcerf go to Rome and have the adventure of a lifetime.
- Villefort’s affair and secret illegitimate baby
- Caderousse murders the jeweler
- Maximilian Morrel and Valentine de Villefort's love story, against all odds
- The Cavalcanti impostor father and son duo
- Caderousse and Andrea's botched burglary of the Count's home
- Valentine is poisoned by her evil stepmother
- Danglars, deeply in debt, ditches his entire family and flees the country
- Andrea's trial and shocking revelation of his real lineage
- The final fate of Danglars in Rome
- The Count and Haydee leave France, together
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The Prisoner of If, in Ainsworth's Magazine. 128 pgs. Credited to Wm. H. Ainsworth, 1845-1846, pub: Henry Colburn.Props to Ainsworth's Magazine (an anthology of "romance, general literature and art") for being the first English translation of The Count of Monte Cristo, ever! It was spread (unequally) over 7 issues (later compiled into 3 volumes), with a total of 128 pages. So, obviously, some things are missing. In a way, Ainsworth's was simply providing a sample taste of the novel, as the 128 pages do not tell a coherent story. It's a combination of heavily summarized account, partial chapters and almost-complete chapters with a lot of gaping holes in-between. The first installment, in volume 7, manages not to mention anything about Mercedes, Fernand, or Abbe Faria's treasure, yet it takes us as far as Dantes' escape from D'if. Volumes 8 and 9 contain more complete chapters, with little/no narrative link between them. New characters just drop-in (without proper introduction to the reader) and are treated with great familiarity by other characters, leaving readers to wonder exactly who they are. Major events happen, but without readers seeing the setup, the "payoff" chapters mean almost nothing out of context. The fates of several characters (Madame Danglars and Eugenie, Albert and Mercedes, and, ummmm... Haydee) are all left untold here. And Danglars' fate in Rome is out-of-sequence, appearing before Villefort and the Count discover young Edouard's death, so the Count's promise to "save the last" [of his enemies] doesn't make sense. Ainsworth's is fascinating from a historical standpoint. But within months, a fuller account in a single volume book (pub. Geo Peirce, see below) appeared, so the puzzled readers of Ainsworth's could at last read a reasonably complete story.
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The Prisoner of If: Or, The Revenge of Monte Christo [sic], 406 pgs.(editor unknown) 1846, pub: Geo. Peirce.Also reprinted 2021 Flame Tree Publishing as The Count of Monte Cristo. Wow. Just... wow. Seems that the earliest English abridged edition from 1846 is really good! Published months before the famous and influential unabridged 1846 Chapman-Hall edition, Prisoner of If just blazes along and really gets to the point. No lengthy (and pointless) dialogue or philosophizing, no travelogues, or long descriptive passages of non-plot-oriented happenings. Moving the plot forwards is top priority and it shows. Short and brisk in only 406 pages, including illustrations! The use of the English language here is very accessible. Even a modern reader won't struggle through this! I have a few issues with the pacing. The first half (in 237 pages), covering the first 1/4 of the original, is perfection. The second half tries to jam 3/4 of the original into only 167 pages and is less successful. But we have to take into account that at the time, no unabridged English-language version existed. The complete version was only in French, so the challenge was two-fold: translating it into English and editing the massive story into a slim, single volume.
Still, even with its flaws, it's just incredible that this has most of
the characters and subplots intact. Most of the later chapters are
only 3 pages long. Some of the cuts towards the end are slightly
problematic...in fact, it has the same problems as Ainsworth's (above)
with the identical missing-fates of the same characters and the
out-of-sequence Danglars' final chapters. Perhaps Ainsworth's was
involved in creating this book, or at least, had heavily influenced
the writing of this book.
Want to read this? It's in public domain and has been scanned and
placed on the internet for free!
Read The Prisoner of If on Google Books! |
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The Count of Monte Cristo- The Revenge of Edmond Dantes, 672 pgs. translated [sic] and abridged by Henry L. Williams, 1892, pub: F.M. Lupton Publishing Co.Note: One of the many early abridged descendants of the 1846 Chapman-Hall English translation, with no attempt to re-translate (from French) or to update the wording. Large sections of each of these are word-for-word identical to the Chapman-Hall one. Each one is distinct- with different sections and chapters of the original trimmed out. Revenge [...] is the one that keeps the majority of the plot and subplots. However, 4 very exciting chapters had been replaced by single page, or condensed summary paragraphs... similar to something out of Cliff’s Notes. Those 4 chapters were *very* important to the story... Bertuccio seeing Villefort bury a box in the garden and then jumping out and stabbing him, Caderousse’s murder of the jeweler, Haydee’s testimony at Fernand’s inquiry, and Albert’s cancellation of his duel with the Count. Completely missing are the 2 chapters re: Noirtier’s revision of his will. Incidentally, despite its claims, this was NOT translated by Henry L. Williams. It's a variant of an already-existing translation.
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The Count of Monte Cristo- The Reprisal of Edmond Dantes, 488-500 pgs. (editor unknown), c.189?, pub: The Mershon Co. and W.L. Allison Co. and M.A. Donohue Co.Reprinted by: Spencer Press 1936, Book League of America 1937, Pyramid Books, 1966. Note: Another of the early abridged descendants of the 1846 Chapman-Hall English translation.
Reprisal [...] trims even more. It keeps a bit more detail of
the Caderousse’s murder of the jeweler, but sacrifices other things to
the editor’s scissors, such as FOUR consecutive early chapters
involving Villefort’s engagement and meeting with the King, all
represented with a few short sentences. Worse yet is the finding of
Faria's treasure- condensed to 2 paragraphs. Noirtier's will and
Eugenie's flight are also demoted from chapters to single paragraphs.
Villefort's confrontation with his serial-poisoner wife: 2 sentences,
and not even unfolding in real-time. It's only mentioned as his
recollection as he rushes home after Andrea's trial. All this heavy editing is literally surrounded by very wordy sections (or chapters) lifted verbatim from the unabridged 1846 edition. Reprisal somehow ends up “being too much” and “too little” at the same time.
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The Count of Monte Cristo, 440 pgs. edited and abridged by G.E. Mitton, 1920, pub: A&C Black Ltd.Also reprinted 2012 Barnes & Noble Signature Editions and 2013 Skyhorse Publishing. Note: Yet another early abridged descendant of the 1846 Chapman-Hall English translation. Finally, we have G.E. Mitton’s 1920 abridgement. A LOT extraneous text and dialogue was removed, so the end result is considerably faster-paced and more plot-oriented and surprisingly readable, given the stuck-in-the-mid-19th-century-prose. This is the first (and not the last) time that the inter-related subplots regarding
Villefort's extramarital affair, Benedetto, the Cavalcantis, and Danglars' fate had been deleted. The Count's purchase of Auteuil becomes insignificant, it's no longer clear why Danglars wants to help expose Fernand's old crimes, we don't know who, or why someone sent a tip-off to the Count about an upcoming burglary of his house, and Caderousse is assassinated by an unknown "comrade". All of these once involved Benedetto/Andrea, but since that entire arc was deleted, these remaining fragments don't really add up. Quite a few of Mitton's choices for omission come off as sanitizing the novel- taking out the more controversial parts such as rapist bandit gangs, brutal public executions, adultery, illegitimate babies, attempted infanticide, and possible LGBT characters. It’s no surprise that Revenge [...] and Reprisal [...] (above)
are no longer in-print and hard to find. I can’t imagine a modern-day
demand for them, as they have been superseded by a public-domain
“Standard Abridged Edition” with slightly more modern language. G.E.
Mitton’s edition had returned to “in-print” status in 2012, but is not
as widely used and distributed as the “Standard Abridged Edition”.
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Seven French Novels (incl. The Count of Monte Cristo), 148 pgs. prepared under Cameron Hyde, 1943, pub: Wise & Co.Tucked away inside a nondescript blue hardcover titled Seven French Novels is the smallest and shortest offspring of the 1846 Chapman-Hall translation. It's only 148 pages, but it's not a children's version. This was meant for adults who'd heard of the famous novel, but were only willing to commit to an evening or two of light reading. Since every inch of space is precious, this abridgement strips away everything that is not plot/story oriented. It reads very well- not as a summary, but as a story that's all meat and no fat. But, in leaving out so much, it has some continuity issues. There's "orphaned" passages that refer back to earlier conversations or events that had been eliminated in the editing. An alert reader would go, "Oh? Are we missing something? When did all this happen?" Another thing that is lost are the references to the passage of time. Still, considering how short this is, this book does a fine and skillful job in conveying the main plot and several of the subplots to a time-strapped reader in the most succinct way possible. I'd love to see this return to in-print status as a primer for adult first-time readers who don't want to be caught reading a children's book or a comic book. Plus, as a special bonus, Seven French Novels contains a tiny 48 page abridgement of Camille, by Alexandre Dumas, fils (son)!
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Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, 281 pgs. Abridged and Annotated by Edgar Ewing Brandon, 1900, pub: Henry Holt and Co.This is kind of cool... Monte Cristo for English speakers learning French. It might be just right for people with only a rudimentary vocabulary and command of the French language. It's mostly in French, with some footnotes in English at the bottom to explain idioms that aren't meant to be taken literally. The text is mostly the dialogue-driven scenes, and there are quite a few places where a summary paragraph (in English) handles large amounts of plot-oriented exposition before moving on to the next section of French dialogue. 2/3 of the book takes us through Dantes finding the treasure, so the final third contains the "revenge" portion. Only Fernand's downfall, and the related Mercedes and Albert subplots are present. Caderousse, Danglars and Villefort's ends are handled in one paragraph (in English) with zero details, and then it's time to go back to French, with the Count's visit to D'if.
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The Count of Monte Cristo "Standard Abridged Edition", 472 pgs. (editor unknown) 1928, pub: Dodd Mead Co.Reprinted by: Signet Classics, Barnes and Noble classics, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Borders classics, TOR Classics, Penguin books Movie tie-in edition, Dover Publications, Macmillan Collector's Library, 472-692 pgs. The Standard Abridged Edition had appeared as early as 1928, published by Dodd, Mead & Company and is technically in public domain, and has been subsequently published and republished by multiple book publishers. They often have a “new” intro or notes, which allows them to be copyrighted. On the good side, the old-fashioned language of the 1846 Chapman-Hall translation was completely revamped into something resembling contemporary English. It’s about half the length of the original. It seems to have taken G.E. Mitton's 1920 version as a blueprint, and similarly removed Villefort's illegitimate child Benedetto. TBH, the entire Andrea subplot isn't handled very well- he suddenly appears to charm the Danglars family, attends various social functions, disappears and much later, Danglars refers to him as a "murderer, a thief, and an impostor". All without any explanation of how he found out, or even who "Andrea" really is, and what eventually happened to him! The fate of several other villains was left up in the air, implying that they actually made out all right, instead of getting their just desserts. As far as getting revenge, Team Dantes bats .500 here. Considering how widely-distributed this version is, it could be better- a lot better. For the number of pages, there's too much good stuff that ended up being tossed out. And there's plenty of other abridged editions that do a much better job with including more of the subplots.
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The Count of Monte Cristo/The House of the Seven Gables, 385 pgs (242 pages for Monte Cristo). Adapted by Mabel Dodge Holmes, 1945, pub: JJ Little & Ives Co./Globe Book Co. Inc.Can it be done? a) The Count of Monte Cristo, missing 75% of its text content b) ...but still keeping the main plot (Dantes>prison>treasure>4 flavors of revenge) c) ...and still contain the necessary subplots to feed the revenge plot? d) ...and be completely readable and enjoyable in Modern English without obvious hack n' slash editing?In the expert hands of Mabel Dodge Holmes, the answer is an overwhelming YES! The dialogue is recognizable as Dumas. The plot keeps all of the good stuff... The Rain of Blood, Dinner at Auteuil, the Cavalcantis, correct fates of all 4 of the Count's enemies... all present! Sadly, Noirtier isn't as powerful and important as he should be. He's around, but he gets the short-shrift as far as his meddling to ensure Valentine's happiness and financial security. There are places where Holmes' version tops Lowell Bair's, 11 years later. Actually, these two fine abridgements dovetail nicely, where Holmes includes chapters and events missing from Bair's and vice versa. If they were to be combined... the end result would the greatest Monte Cristo abridgement of all time! This book is long out-of-print, and only available via antiquarian booksellers. It's worth it. Forget the Standard Abridged Editions... this is the book that teens/young adults should be reading! Recommended!
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The Count of Monte Cristo, 531 pgs. Translated and abridged by Lowell Bair, 1956, pub: Bantam Books.Also reprinted in hardcover, 1985, as part of "The Greatest Historical Novels" series, Bantam Books. To date, this one, the 1956 abridgment of The Count of Monte Cristo by Lowell Bair is the gold standard for shorter versions of the book. If you want the unabridged one, in modern English, go for the Robin Buss translation. If you’re looking for a slimmed-down version in modern English that retains most of the characters, character interaction, plot, subplots AND witty dialogue, without the overly wordy, talky and meandering chapters, go for this one. There is a good reason why the Lowell Bair version is heavily used in high schools... it’s GOOD. It also includes some of the more scandalous parts of Dumas’ original: brutal public executions, adultery, illegitimate babies, attempted infanticide, people leaving their disgraced spouses, and possible LGBT characters. But I am relieved to say that it does not include Cucumetto's rapist bandit gang. Bair’s shortened and re-translated text flows beautifully with nary a sign of the 1846 Chapman-Hall wording. It can be read effortlessly without getting bored or losing track of the plot due to lengthy character discussions in the original. What makes this slightly short of perfection is the culling of some chapters that I think are crucial to understanding the story and characters (Chapter 4- “Conspiracy” and Chapter 77- “Haydee” in the unabridged text). It almost hurts to see those chapters excised here, and to see them present in some children’s editions. Still, Lowell Bair shows that over half of Dumas’ text can be successfully removed and yet still preserve the flavor of the original book. Recommended for teen and adult readers.
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The Count of Monte Cristo, 404 pgs. Abridged by Robin Waterfield, 1996, pub: Puffin Classics.At 404 pages, with NO PICTURES or illustrations, this is midway between a teen/adult version and a children’s edition. It’s actually an abridgement of an abridgement, as a chapter-by-chapter analysis and wording comparison shows that the public domain “Standard Abridged Edition” was used as the source, and Waterfield had further edited it down, dropped some additional chapters and combined some others. The part that is inexcusable is the removal of chapters about Dantes landing on the island of Monte Cristo and finding the treasure(!). There is no reason for any book edition to go from just-escaped prisoner Dantes swimming to the island of Tiboulen and then abruptly jumps to Dantes as the rich and all-powerful Count, with endless money and disguises to get information about his enemies. It's just insane for something this important to be missing and readers are expected to assume that a) Dantes was rescued from the sea b) he found the treasure. If we look beyond this "slight" problem, the rest of the book moves along pretty well. The editing in the chapter about Haydee's backstory is particularly superb. The book, overall, has a reasonably decent resemblance to the original, and has all of the strengths and weakness of its source (Standard Abridged Edition).
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The Count of Monte Cristo, 1240 pgs. Translation revised by Peter Washington, 2009, pub: Everyman's Library by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House.Advertised as: "this slightly streamlined version of the original 1846 English translation speeds the narrative flow while retaining most of the rich pictorial descriptions and all the essential details of Dumas’s intricately plotted and thrilling masterpiece." In his Introduction, Umberto Eco has quite a few eye-opening things to say about The Count of Monte Cristo. He says, "[it] is one of the most exciting novels ever written and on the other hand is one of the most badly written novels of all time". Eco goes on to mention wordiness, slovenliness, and redundancies in the original French text, let alone in the 1846 English translation. So, Peter Washington had gone through the 1846 Chapman-Hall text and made some small modifications- mainly editing out a line or two here and there. The end result still reads like Chapman-Hall, as Peter Washington did not add anything non-canon, nor re-write anything, and to be honest, most people won't even notice the changes. Every chapter is present. The page count for the story itself, minus all the introductions and scholarly notes, is "only" 1174 pages. This is a "barely-abridged" edition, and I have only included it because it is shorter than the original. Recommended, if you want to read the book in the way that people had read it in the 19th century, and/or enjoy the "classic" and "historical" version of the book. The "streamlining" does readers a very useful service.
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The Count of Monte Cristo as Retold by Sherlock Holmes, 684 pgs. By Holy Ghost Writer, 2013, pub: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (book) and lluminated Publications Limited (ebook).The Count of Monte Cristo as Retold by Sherlock Holmes... it sounds a bit like a joke, doesn't it? The framing device is Sherlock Holmes telling the somewhat-condensed story of Monte Cristo to Dr. Watson. If the intent was to have Holmes/Watson add some interesting analysis or insight, that's a bust. It's not here. In the early chapters, their additional commentary and dialogue are intrusive, but happily, the interruptions die off around Chapter 40, so we can enjoy what's basically an abridged edition of The Count of Monte Cristo without all the Holmes/Watson yammering. So, what does Holy Ghost Writer bring that hasn't been done before? Answer: an abridged edition that has EVERY CHAPTER (All 117 of them!) represented. I really appreciated having every plot point and event accounted for. There are some problems though- the line spacing is inconsistent, with a few chapters being double-spaced. The Table of Contents doesn't work (does not hyperlink). And there are some typos, some misnamed characters (pssst! nobody is named "Mazzolato", Countess G- is not a "Princess", it's "Eugenie" not "Eugenia", there is no "Adrian Cavalcanti") and some sentences are clumsily worded. The text even introduces new inaccuracies (Caderousse sentenced to the "gallows", saying that Hermine (de Nargonne) Danglars née de Servières married Villefort, totally misrepresenting the Noirtier/General Quesnel duel) that kind-of disqualify this from being used in any serious book discussions or as a reference. Whoops! HGW needs a proofreader. HGW gains points for completeness, but the good parts, as well as the tedious parts, had all been equally pared down to the minimum needed to tell the story. This is an interesting exercise. HGW's love and affinity for the material is obvious, but the project is hamstrung by technical issues and pure sloppiness. Maybe a version 2.0 after a massive sweep and tidy-up can make The Count of Monte Cristo as Retold by Sherlock Holmes a real contender.
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Major Revisions:
07/15/22: Synced "Plots Point Table" with the others: Children's Books, Comics/Manga, Movies.
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