Dumas, Alexandre "The Count of Monte Cristo"

Dumas, Alexandre "The Count of Monte Cristo" (French: Le comte de Monte-Cristo) - 1844-46

When I was little, they would show a swashbuckling film on German television every Sunday. We called them "Mantel- und Degenfilm" which translates into "coat and épée film". Every Sunday!

This book reminded me of that time and that's probably why I like it. I thought about the Three Musketeers and all those other books and films I saw on that subject.

This book has it all, love and hate, rich and poor, adventure, revenge, death, mystery, murder, plots, history and - of course, the swashbuckling.

Of course, as most classics, it also gives you some insight into the politics of the time. Now, I never find the French history - or any other history - as exciting as that of the Tudors but it definitely has something.

I read this book in the original which gave me some good exercise with my rusty French.

From the back cover:

"Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s."