The Abbreviated Monte Cristo

Why the Hogan-Verse Sucks in The Hand of the Dead The world that Alfredo Hogan created for the Monte Cristo "sequel", The Hand of the Dead , sucks to live in. It has all of the disadvantages of a world run by a pitiless, exacting God, and of a world where "sh** happens and then you die" where no matter how hard you try to follow "God's rules", you're still easily a victim to random occurrences that end your life way prematurely.  Yeah, I'm still rambling and ranting about this trainwreck of a book. It's even worse than Jules Lermina's books, because at least Lermina allowed Haydee to die of unknown natural causes, the Count managed to live until age 75, and he was able to raise his son Esperance/Spero up to age 21. Hogan doesn't even give the Count that much. Nope.  Read review of "The Hand of the Dead" (Hogan) Hogan's ever-present moralizing: "Don't be arrogant! Give your money to the poor! ...

The Lord of the World by Adolf Mützelburg (1856) Der Herr Der Welt (German) Adolf Mützelburg I'm not completely convinced that this is a worthwhile read. After slogging through the book, there doesn't seem to be a Main Plot at all- it's more like a set of aimless (mis)adventures involving people peripherally involved with the Count, and it's up to him to chase after them in multiple countries to save them from their dire situations. There seems to be five separate plot threads, and this book just meanders around all over the place, with no specific purpose. The author, Adolf Mützelburg, seems to be a bad writer, but it seems possible (and probable) that there was a longer version originally, and had been brutally edited down later to about 300 pages. This means that for those who ARE willing to trudge through this rather uninteresting book, there's no pot of gold at the end and it STILL won't make any sense! The book is available in G...

The Treasure of Monte Cristo by Jules Lermina (1885) Le Trésor de Monte-Cristo (French) Jules Lermina Jules Lermina must've really needed the money. Four years after the previous "conclusion" that the Lermina-verse had brought us- the pitiful death of Edmond Dantes huddled over the coffin of his boy Spero, Lermina cranked out ANOTHER Monte Cristo sequel. But the pickings had become quite slim indeed... who's going to be the hero of the new story? Lermina had wiped out everybody besides Eugenie! No chance for the Count to have had another child. Albert never reproduced. Max and Val killed off... what to do? What to do???  Lermina creates "The NewFoundland Club", a multi-national group fighting the tyranny and oppression of victimized/conquered peoples as the next generation of good guys. And Valentin Morrel makes his first appearance on page 439! But who can be the villain this time? Lermina desperately grasps at straws and taps o...

"The Sultan of Monte Cristo" by Holy Ghost Writer (2013) "Holy Ghost Writer" is a pen name for an anonymous writer who sought to expand the Universe of Monte-Cristo by writing a series of books, starting in 2012-2013 that was supposed to take Edmond Dantes from his original adventure in The Count of Monte Cristo into the future with his descendants. It was a very ambitious goal, but remains unfulfilled. After a flurry of activity in 2013, and two books in 2015, HGW's Monte Cristo output died down. But more on this topic later. HGW's first book of the series is an abridged version of Dumas' original, with some Sherlock Holmes/Dr.Watson chatter inserted, so the book can be sold as The Count of Monte Cristo as Retold by Sherlock Holmes . For a complete review of that book, read it here (scroll to the final review on the page). Go to: Monte Cristo Abridged for Teens and Adults The Count and his new wife, Haydee are headed to Alban...

The Hand of the Dead by Alfredo Hogan (1854) La Mano del Muerto (Spanish) A Mão do Finado (Portuguese) La main du défunt by F. LePrince (French) How and when did all these 19th century rip-offs/wretched sequels get their start? Somewhere around 1854, a mysterious "new" book appeared, first in Portuguese, called A Mão do Finado , which roughly translates to The Hand of the Dead/Deceased/Dead Man. It confused a lot of people, claiming to be The Count of Monte Cristo, Part 2: The Hand of the Dead , with no author attributed. The unfortunates who read the book vented their outrage by writing to Alexandre Dumas who was still alive at the time!!! Dumas repudiated and denounced it, calling it "repulsive" and "a bad book". Eventually, the true author's name was revealed: Portuguese postal worker Alfredo Hogan, who moonlighted as a novelist and playwright. But later editions, even to the current day, credit the book as written by "...

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."🤣 Read review of Book I (Flagg) 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 wo...

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, meri...