The Abbreviated Monte Cristo

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

Monte Cristo : A Play by Charles Fetcher, updated by James O'Neill (1883) Finally! I have located a book of the Charles Fetcher/James O'Neill play, Monte Cristo , to satisfy my curiosity! Some background: The Count of Monte Cristo , as a book, was an instant hit all over the world. Alexandre Dumas himself had adapted it for stage, but the results were not successful- it was too large and too long and required audiences to attend for 2 evenings. By 1868, Charles Fetcher had written a stage-play and starred in his own adaptation of Monte Cristo , which bombed. In 1870, Fetcher had further edited down the work. By 1883, James O'Neill had picked up the torch, playing Dantes onstage, and eventually buying up the rights to Fetcher's play.  O'Neill modified Fetcher's script, and the play became a hit, with O'Neill playing Edmond Dantes over 6,000 times in a 40 (!!!) year period. This version is still being performed

Monte Cristo Wording Comparisons in Different Editions: First Paragraph So you're in an antique or used book store, and you spot a vintage edition of The Count of Monte Cristo . Or you're browsing ebooks and you spot one with a different cover. Do you have that one already? Is the text content different from what you already have? Is it abridged? Is it something unique? Where did it really come from? What IS it? Let me help you! There ARE wording differences between the famous 1846 Chapman-Hall translation, and its various abridged offspring, new translations or new re-worded adaptations! So these random dusty tomes or ebooks from unknown companies can usually be identified by looking at the first paragraph on the first page. Who knows! Maybe you're finding something good, or avoiding something not-so-good (e.g. Standard Abridged Edition).  You can find my complete book recommendations here: Go to: Monte Cristo Abridged for Teens and Adults It

"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