Edmond Dantes by Edmund Flagg (1884)

There's never been any shortage of Monte-Cristo related books by other authors, popping up like mushrooms quickly in the wake of Dumas' massive success. Most of these spinoff books went out of print a century ago, but thanks to their status as "public domain" and digitizing services, and Internet sites like Gutenberg.Org, Archive.Org, the Library of Congress and the Hathi Trust, these books now have a second life, available for free to anyone willing to go deeper into the rabbit-hole. For those searching for more of the magic of Monte Cristo: prepare to be disappointed. Very disappointed.

And... further scraping to the bottom of the barrel, we have American author Edmund Flagg's book, Edmond Dantes. It is Book I of Flagg's Monte Cristo sequels. It rather conceitedly declares itself as: "Edmond Dantes, one of the greatest novels ever written"; "the plot is phenomenal in its strength, merit and ingeniousness."🤣 People reading it might have a different opinion.

Notice the misspellings on the covers of 2 books: "Edmund Dantes" instead of "Edmond Dantes"🤣. The interior title pages are correct. Publisher was M.A. Donohue & Co. (reprint?)

BOOK I:

Edmond Dantes literally picks up the minute that Dumas' book ends (1838). The Count and Haydee are on the deck of the yacht, the Alcyon, ready to sail away to a new life... somewhere. Their boat is caught up in a major storm, caused by a volcanic earthquake and they are thrown on the little island of Salmis. FFWD ten years, and the Count and Haydee have made lemons into lemonade. They married in Athens, and he bought the island and had a magnificent palace built in Salmis. They also have 2 children, Esperance (9) and Zuleika (8).

Of course, this idyllic existence can't last, and Benedetto creeps back into their lives- stabbing Haydee to death and setting the palace on fire. The Count, his children and the staff (including Ali) survive and return to France. So far, so good- it should be 1848.

Rewind (?) to 1841(?). Beauchamp and Debray discuss the fortunes of the the main cast. Main takeaway is that M. Dantes, a man of mystery, and very staunch supporter of the French Republican cause is now Deputy of Marseilles and "the finest orator in France" and they eagerly go to the Chamber of Deputies to hear him. M. Dantes gives a well-received speech about the rights of man (etc.) but the pro-Royalist papers attack him. It's implied to be 1848 again (???) because Beauchamp mentions that M. Dantes is a widower, so the 7 year time jump is unexplained.

The nightmarish, Groundhog Day-esque endless year of 1848 has begun. Zuleika has grown up, from age 8 to 16 (in the same year 🤣) and has a suitor, Viscount Giovanni Massetti asking for her hand in marriage.

A very long set of chapters discusses a printing office, political discussions, and the general disillusionment over King Louis Philippe's reign. Skip this. Beauchamp and Debray name-drop Louise D'Armilly, her brother Leon, Maximilian and his wife Valentine, Mercedes and Albert de Morcerf, mentioning that 2 million francs from Thomson and French had landed in Mercedes' lap, credited to the estate of her late husband, Fernand. Hmmm....

M. Dantes becomes deathly ill. A woman appears at Dr. Orfila's office and asks to nurse M. Dantes back to health. As he recovers, M. Dantes babbles incoherently about his past, and asks if Mercedes still loves him, and pleads for her to come. And she is sitting right there, so we all know what happens. They get together and marry, and at a fête, they are complimented as "the finest pair in Paris" and "they have been man and wife for some time." (⮜how long, exactly?)

The next time we see a date, it's the 22nd of February- the French Revolution of 1848. These chapters involve characters, some new, some historical, that we barely know of and sounds exactly like the worst parts of Les Miserables. M. Dantes is mentioned a few times to cheer on the revolution, but nothing plot-oriented happens for another 75 pages. About half the book total is a snooze-inducing semi-historical account of the revolution.

The final chapters of this book cover exactly the same ground as the middle chapters of the next book, but from a slightly different character POV: Esperance's quarrel with Massetti, Albert's romantic involvement with "Louise D'Armilly". Zuleika asking her father to contact Luigi Vampa about a scandal and mystery involving Massetti. M. Dantes' interview with both Esperance and Massetti, where both refuse to provide details due to an "oath" they swore. And lastly, Luigi Vampa's reply. These all drop a few hints and clues that will be further explained in Book II.

Confusing? Hell yeah!

There is one major source of amusement in the book: Albert, Louise D'Armilly and "Leon", and the Count all take on new monikers, and people who knew them well in the original book can't see through the ruse, don't recognize them now, and even make up excuses to deny their real identities! 🤣

The Verdict: This book has serious chronological problems. The first few chapters are fine, with the Count and his family living on Salmis for ten years until the tragedy of Haydee's death and the fire that drives them back to France in 1848. The children grow up (to ages 17 and 16), and the Count marries again, so the current date should be 1856.

But the 1848 French revolution is also one of the main plot lines, and that date is non-negotiable, and it also needs to involve the Count in the planning "for the past six years" (as if he was commuting from Salmis to Paris to Marseilles constantly since his kids were toddlers), and Mercedes remains a lovely, perennial age 40 (the same age she was in 1838) so the only explanation is: TARDIS. The entire book is a TARDIS 🤣, and whatever the plot demands, the TARDIS will adjust the timeline to make it work, somehow.

It's kind of nice to see Dantes and Mercedes finally content and happy together, and it's done in a reasonably organic way. Both of them had lost their spouses through trauma, and time (and a never-ending year 1848) had healed their wounds, which is far better than the way that some movies depict them immediately getting together after Fernand's death.

The timeline is unnecessarily convoluted, especially Book I's relationship with Book II. Book I concentrates on the 1848 Revolution, with M. Dantes as a peripheral character. Book II concentrates on the Dantes Family Drama and Viscount Massetti, and the revolution is barely mentioned, and some parts of it are set one year prior to Book I!

Book I is far worse than Book II. Flagg might have been better off chucking the 1848 Revolution stuff, and integrating 14 chapters from Book I (the Monte Cristo-oriented ones) with Book II and making a single, contiguous story sans the weird time and POV jumps. Then the story could simply be set in 1856, and everything would work far better.

Book II is Monte Cristo's Daughter (reviewed here).