The Count of Monte Cristo (Wordsworth Classics)

There's only one thing better than opening up a good new book, and that's re-opening an old favourite, like this sweeping great 19th century drama, especially when it's long enough and gripping enough to make good holiday reading. The story might look simple: young man, victim of a malicious prank that goes wrong, is imprisoned for years, and on his escape takes his revenge. Wronged by three people he thought were friends, and a lawyer who should have protected him, he devises that revenge in ways uniquely fitting to each man, and does it in such a way that each man blindly embraces the course that brings downfall upon himself. The man in love with money swallows every false whiff of easy profit, the man whose dubious army career brought him great honours is disgraced before the House of Peers he values so highly, and the incorruptible magistrate with a secret loses his whole family through his devotion to the legal code he once set aside for his own protection, while the fourth man is so self-centred that he cannot see the web he is winding around himself. A thousand pages of mystery and adventure keep up the tension before the hero's vengeance is satisfied and he turns to self-judgement.Like all good stories, though, there's more to it than that: Dumas doesn't just know how to paint a vivid picture. Beneath all the adventures there lies a profound philosophy which only slowly dawns on the wronged hero: when his vengeance begins to touch on the lives of the innocent children of his four targets, he realises that he is no longer – that he never was – the agent of divine retribution, and he becomes a greater, and lonelier, person in the chapters that bring the book and the adventures to a gentler coda.Amazingly, this action-packed, complex drama is based on real events, and not just based on them: The Count of Monte Cristo follows, episode for episode, a sequence of crimes that unravelled in Paris at just about the period that Dumas chose for his masterpiece. The true story is all there in the archives of the Paris police - or it would be if they hadn't been destroyed in the 1870 Prussian siege of the city. For good or ill, the story survived only in a florid re-telling by a contemporary sensationalist hack, providing unwitting evidence of how a great novelist can fashion a diamond from a lump of carbon. (Review originally published in the Chesil Magazine, Dorset)

The language is not quite modern, but very readable, and great to build vocabulary for young readers.The story of love, betrayal and revenge is truly amazing, and has endured for a century and a half for good reason.The paperback's quality is fine, with medium font size.

The Count Of Monte Cristo has to be one of the biggest surprises for me this year. I really had doubts about reading it as I didn't really know much about it and it is quite a chunky book; but I absolutely fell in love with this book!Edmund Dantes is easily one of my new all time favourite characters. And I now have two all time favourite classics. I was considering if The Count Of Monte Cristo had knocked Crime And Punishment off its perch, but no I think they are both equal.I thought the writing was really wonderful and so easy to read. I loved the characters, both the good and the bad and I thought the story was so well thought out and just so very enjoyable. Apparently I like a good revenge story! If I ever need to get revenge on someone I hope I can do it with as much cunning, class and flair as the Count Of Monte Cristo!I can now see how this is a lot of peoples all time favourite classic as it is so much more accessible than a lot of other classics due to the language used and the stories aren't always relatable in modern times. Revenge however is understood through the ages.Overall a really excellent book, one I'm so glad that we picked up as buddy readers as I may have missed out on this if not. I really look forward to picking this up again in the future, so I can re read Dantes adventures.

This is one of those books that you tend to think you’ve read though in fact you probably haven’t. Possibly because it’s a bit of a doorstop – but we’ll come back to that.There are a whole bunch of classic ingredients here: jealous rival, love triangle, false imprisonment, hidden treasure and most of all revenge. Like all good revenge stories it builds slowly, thoroughly demolishing the protagonist before putting him on track to get his own back.There are a lot of complex relationships going on which it can be hard to keep track of. Also, by modern standards, there’s an awful lot of detailed description that slows the pace of the plot. You might even say that it’s over written, but again that’s to judge by modern standards.Which brings us back to the length. Like quite a few novels of this period – yes, Dickens this includes you – I feel it rather suffers from having been written as a part work. You can spot the bits where he’s digressed to pad it out to meet the word count and where information is repeated in case you’ve forgotten the last instalment.All in all then a classic tale and one that’s well worth visiting, but strap yourself in for a long haul.

Is Dumas the world's greatest ever writer? He's certainly got a shout to be. This book is an absolute classic; a wonderful tale of intrigue, revenge, love and conspiracy amongst everything else. It's a long read but it's all consuming. Wonderful book just like all his other novels.