THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas in 1844. It is one of the author's more popular works, along with The Three Musketeers. The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815-1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. It begins on the day that Napoleon left his first island of exile, Elba, beginning the Hundred Days period when Napoleon returned to power.Before he can marry his fiancee Mercedes, Edmond Dantes, a nineteen-year-old Frenchman, and first mate of the Pharaon, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the Château d'If, a grim island fortress off Marseille. A fellow prisoner, Abbe Faria, correctly deduces that his jealous rival Fernand Mondego, envious crewmate Danglars, and double-dealing magistrate De Villefort turned him in. Faria inspires his escape and guides him to a fortune in treasure. As the powerful and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo (Italy), Dantes arrives from the Orient to enter the fashionable Parisian world of the 1830s and avenge himself on the men who conspired to destroy him.