"Monte Cristo's Daughter" by Edmund Flagg (1886)
Monte Cristo's Daughter by Edmund Flagg (1886)
And... continuing the story of Zuleika and the Monte Cristo clan, we have Edmund Flagg's book, Monte Cristo's Daughter. On its own title page, the book untruthfully hypes itself as: "a wonderfully brilliant, original, exciting and absorbing novel."🤣
To be fair, it is an improvement over Flagg's first book of the set, Edmond Dantes. The 1848 Revolution is over, and all those ho-hum Revolutionary figures are gone, and so are their political monologues. Now Flagg can get around to the Monte Cristo Family Drama, soap-opera-ish tidbits that he dropped in the last few chapters of Edmond Dantes without properly setting the scene. What's all this about a broken friendship? Scandal? A crime? An oath to silence? How did this all start?
To do this, the story needs to rewind to one year prior, when Zuleika was 15, which might be 1847 (it can't be! Zuleika would be 7, Haydee was still alive and the family was happily living on Salmis!) or it could be 1855 (can't be that either- France is a Republic), so the TARDIS will adjust Time as needed.🤣
BOOK II:
1847 (or 1855?): The Count is in Rome, Italy to oversee his daughter Zuleika's education at one of the finest convent schools. He hears the famous singer, "Louise D'Armilly", reportedly "the daughter of a banker" at the Opera and wants to pay a social call. Miss "D'Armilly", still accompanied by "Leon" refuses his request, rather rudely, too... despite everything he's done for them (such as arranging letters of recommendation and passports so they could escape France and get to Italy in the first place, remember?) ... my! How quickly they forget!Next, in another shameless ripoff of Les Miserables, a handsome nobleman, Viscount Massetti spots Zuleika at the convent school, falls in love and slips her a note through the garden gate. They meet in the garden secretly, embrace and she tells him that her father wouldn't approve of them together. But he loves her and asks her to be his wife. Yup, it's Les Miz, all right!
"Louise", being a complete bitch while being courted by Albert, asks Albert to fight and kill the Count, declaring him to be her "enemy" (WTF???) It is later revealed that Louise and Eugenie swapped names and places, and she's pissed at the Count for financially ruining her father, Danglars (???) And this detail makes Albert and the Count look even stupider for not noticing the switch, because they'd met the ladies in the original book and should be able to tell them apart!🤣
Luigi Vampa's crimes, and his motivation for them, defies any logic. Vampa already has a girlfriend, Teresa, but he "buys" the peasant girl from her sleazebag father. Why? Sex-slave? But no, after raping her and helping frame Massetti, Vampa lets her go home. So why'd he pay all that money to "buy" her? One-time only sex?😡 Vampa is arrested and convicted due to a face-turn by Peppino and Beppo.
Massetti reconciles with his father, and both fathers grant permission for Massetti and Zuleika to marry. The wedding is a huge affair. The couple moves to Paris, with Massetti buying a magnificent home, furnishing it "oriental style", just the way Zuleika likes it. But... Massetti is no real catch. Didn't renounce his horndog ways in pursuing the peasant girl for hanky-panky, all while keeping Zuleika in his back pocket for a proper marriage. He'll be hunting for a mistress in no time. And the girl? Poor thing was gaslighted into thinking Massetti was guilty, and ends up in a convent for "fallen women".😡
Eugenie gets over her anger at the Count and marries Albert, a MAN 🤣. This makes Eugenie the new "young Madame de Morcerf"! Louise is content to tag along with them (!!!) as a third wheel🤣.
Due to the death of Haydee, the Count married Mercedes, as mentioned in Edmond Dantes. The children adore their new step-mother. The blended family, plus Albert, his wife Eugenie, and Louise move to the old Morcerf mansion at 27 Rue du Helder in Paris. Yep. the same place where Fernand blew his brains out. Ick.
...And they all lived happily ever after, leading a tranquil and charming existence!
Danglars slinks away and disappears after an unsuccessful home-invasion robbery at the Morcerf Count's mansion. Just in case Flagg wanted to write another sequel, a pre-made villain is always ready to be called up again.
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1-SequelTrope: Benedetto returns to wreak havoc? |
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2-SequelTrope: Eugenie straightwashed? |
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| 3-SequelTrope: Haydee dies young? | |
| 4-SequelTrope: The Count's son killed? |
The Verdict:
Taken together, Edmond Dantes and Monte Cristo's Daughter can't possibly be taken seriously by devout fans of The Count of Monte Cristo. Aside from the fractured timeline, the Count, Albert, Eugenie, Louise and especially Luigi Vampa are acting completely out-of-character, compared to their original incarnations (by Dumas). The Count can't seem to remember people he'd known and helped before. Louise and Eugenie are ungrateful bitches. Albert and Eugenie loathed each other in the original book, yet Flagg makes them a viable couple- what changed? And Luigi Vampa, originally a sort of anti-hero goes full-villain here. We see another attempt by a non-Dumas author to subject Eugenie to "Gay Conversion Therapy" and convert her to a heterosexual female, suitable to be married off to a gentleman😡. Decades after the original book was written, some writers still couldn't handle Dumas' amazingly daring and progressive writing of a sympathetic LGBT character so they just had to meddle!
Unlike Jules Lermina, Flagg was pretty obsessed with creating a happy ending for our heroes. The last chapter is even titled "Joy Unbounded". To his credit, Flagg had a lighter touch, allowed most of the "good" legacy characters to survive, and was not attempting to destroy the Monte Cristo legacy the way that Lermina did. And thanks to a calendar that stays perpetually stuck in 1848, it may be quite possible that the Count and Mercedes can enjoy some grandchildren while never growing older themselves! 🤣A unified Monte-Cristoverse? Nope! I was a bit surprised that this tried so hard to (partially) have some commonalities and call-outs to the other dreck Monte Cristo sequels, written by different people. Example: Albert is known as "Captain Joliette", and the Count's son is named Esperance in both Lermina's and Flagg's novels.
No matter how hard one tries, there is no way to reconcile the conflicting timelines, marriages, ages, lifespans and existences of characters. This tangled and inconsistent mess can be traced to publisher T.B. Peterson in Philadelphia, as they had purposely marketed six books (including the real original by Dumas) as a set- a sort of Monte-Cristoverse.* This nonsense gets pushed to the extreme when we realize that in just this one book, there are TWO the Countesses of Monte-Cristo at the same time 🤣. There's Mercedes, the Count's 2nd wife (⮜makes sense) and there's Madame Helena de Rancogne, from her own book, who never directly associated with the Count! (⮜doesn't make a damn bit of sense!)
The overall continuity of the set is just as bad as 1960's-era DC Universe**
* From the publisher's real ad-copy:
Petersons' Complete and Unabridged Editions.
EDMOND DANTES. The Sequel to "The Count of Monte-Cristo," by Alexander Dumas. "Edmond Dantes" is one of the most wonderful romances ever issued. Just at the point where "The Count of Monte-Cristo" ends, "Edmond Dantes" takes up the fascinating narrative and continues it with marvellous power and absorbing interest unto the end. Every person that has read "The Count of Monte-Cristo" should get "Edmond Dantes" at once, and read it. Complete in one large Duodecimo volume, paper cover, price 75 cents, or #1.25 in cloth.
THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. Petersons' New Illustrated Edition. By Alexander Dumas. With full-page Engravings, illustrative of various scenes in the work. Petersons' Edition of The Count of Monte-Cristo" is the only Complete and Unabridged Edition of it ever translated, and it is conceded by all to be the greatest as well as the most exciting and best historical novel ever printed. Complete in one large octavo volume of six hundred pages, with illustrations, paper cover, price One Dollar, or $1.50 bound in morocco cloth.
THE WIFE OF MONTE-CRISTO. Being the Continuation of Alexander Dumas' Celebrated Novel of "The Count of Monte-Cristo." With an Illustrated Cover, with Portraits of "Monte-Cristo," "Haydee," and their faithful servant, "Ali," on it. Every person that has read "The Count of Monte-Cristo" should get "The Wife of Monte-Cristo" at once, and read it. Complete in one large duodecimo volume, paper cover, price 75 cents, or $1.25 in cloth.
THE SON OF MONTE-CRISTO. Being the Sequel to "The Wife of Monte-Cristo." With an Illustrated Cover, with Portraits of the heroines in the work on it. Every person that has read "The Count of Monte-Cristo" or "The Wife of Monte-Cristo " should get " The Son of Monte-Cristo" at once, and read it. Complete in one large duodecimo volume, paper cover, price 75 cents, or $1.25 in cloth.
THE COUNTESS OF MONTE-CRISTO. Being the Companion to Alexander Dumas' Celebrated Novel of "The Count of Monte-Cristo," and fully equal to that world-renowned novel. At the very commencement of the novel the Count of Monte-Cristo, Haydee, the wife of Monte-Cristo, and Esperance, the son of Monte-Cristo, take part in a weird scene, in which Mercedes, Albert de Morcerf and the Countess of Monte-Cristo also participate. Complete in one large octavo volume, paper cover, price One Dollar, or $1.50 in cloth.
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