The Abbreviated Monte Cristo

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...

The Son of Monte Cristo, Vol. II by Jules Lermina (1881) Jules Lermina Back for more agony? Must know what the Lermina-verse has in store for the Count of Monte Cristo? I have the full scoop! I read this entire piece of trash so you don't have to! For people looking for Part 1 of my Jules Lermina book review, it's on a separate page and you can read it here! Read review of Book I (Lermina) By the way, there are 1940's era movies also titled "The Son of Monte Cristo" and "The Wife of Monte Cristo". These have nothing to do with the books by Jules Lermina. The movies are Hollywood productions with their own screenplays and writers, capitalizing on the success of the none-too-book-accurate 1934 movie, "The Count of Monte Cristo" starring Robert Donat.  BOOK II: Part 3: Fanfaro "The Adventures of Fanfaro" follows the new main-character that we'd JUST MET. None of this involves The Count, Haydee, or ...

The Wife of Monte Cristo or The Son of Monte Cristo, Vol. I by Jules Lermina (1881) Jules Lermina While doing some searches on the Internet for "more Monte Cristo", readers have no doubt located some references to books: The Wife of Monte Cristo and/or The Son of Monte Cristo, or sometimes, Monte-Cristo and the Countess . A lot of these editions are vaguely worded as " The [...] of Monte Cristo , sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas." But don't be fooled! They are not by Dumas. They were written by Frenchman Jules Lermina, who lifted whole passages from the original, and "continued the journey" of the Count, his friends and enemies. There are 2 different English-Language translations/edits. I had read the shorter one (translated by Jacob Abarbanell), so it might be possible that the longer one has fewer plot holes. Since this is dreck anyway, I will not be reading the longer one. I did a quick peek, and the...

Greven av Monte Christo Warning: SPOILERS GALORE! Greven av Monte Christo . 246 minutes, screenplay by Sven Lange. 1965, pub: NRK Television (Norway). Starring: Knut Risan. Director: Kent Nilssen, Alfred Solaas. This was really, really filmed on a budget and is the source of unexpected laughs. The very first scene has a geographically-challenged map of Europe . The Pharaon's landing in Marseilles is a tabletop model ship , with a fan blowing its little sails! Chateau D'if is a tabletop cardboard and plaster model! That said, the camerawork is superior to the 1964 BBC production, without the "up your nose/ face taking up the entire screen" shots of the British show. I don't understand the language, and there's no English subtitles, so I'm attempting to follow along using visuals only. The first part in Marseilles introduces us to Danglars and Fern...

Edmond Dantes and Heathcliff sit down and chat about revenge! Book Roast: Featuring Wuthering Heights. So, this is the kinder and gentler book roasting of Wuthering Heights, in the form of a semi-serious, semi-satirical, semi-fanfic. Maybe all poor Heathcliff needed was a friend, a man of similar trauma, life experience, social status and wealth. Someone who can tell him what's what and cut through all the self-delusions and BS. So, let me introduce: EDMOND DANTES, The Count of Monte Cristo! ED: Hello Sir, some Lit Fans had suggested that we should meet, and here we are. H: Yes, So I was told. We have some things in common, I hear? Like a revenge obsession? Here's my book! Read all about me! ED: And here's mine. Let's meet in 3 weeks and exchange notes! H: Deal! (3 weeks later) H: Uh oh, I think I see my ex-wife, Isabella...