60 Fun Facts About The Count of Monte Cristo

Who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo?

Much of the plotting came from his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet, who also worked with him on The Three Musketeers.

Over which years was the novel serialised before appearing in book form?

It ran in eighteen parts in a Paris newspaper and was one of the most widely read works of its day across Europe.

What is the real name of the man who becomes the Count?

He is only nineteen and about to be made captain of a merchant ship when the plot against him begins.

What is the name of the merchant ship on which Dantès serves as first mate?

Its owner, Morrel, wants to make him captain, which is what provokes the jealousy of the ship's supercargo.

On what real historical day does the novel begin?

That launched the Hundred Days of 1815, and Dantès is carrying a letter from Elba for the Bonapartist Noirtier when he is denounced.

In which port city does the story open?

The prison fortress where Dantès is thrown lies on a tiny island about a mile and a half offshore.

What is the name of Dantès's Catalan fiancée?

She later marries his rival, and years afterwards is the only person who recognises the Count as Edmond at first sight.

Which jealous cousin of Dantès's fiancée helps write the letter denouncing him?

He rises to become the Count de Morcerf and a general, and takes his own life when his betrayals are exposed.

What is Dantès falsely accused of being?

The anonymous letter sent to the crown prosecutor claims he is carrying treasonous correspondence for the exiled emperor's supporters.

Which neighbour of Dantès knows the charge is false but is too cowardly to speak up?

Years later, disguised as a priest, Dantès rewards him with a diamond, and he murders a jeweller to keep both the stone and the money.

Why does the deputy prosecutor bury Dantès in prison even though he believes him innocent?

The letter is addressed to Noirtier, Villefort's father, and the young prosecutor destroys it to protect his career.

What is the name of the island fortress in which Dantès is imprisoned?

The real fortress was built for a French king in the 1520s, never fought off an attack, and opened to tourists in 1890.

Which fellow inmate tunnels by mistake into Dantès's cell?

The scholarly Italian priest teaches him languages, history, mathematics and science over eight years and works out who framed him.

What number does the prison governor call Dantès instead of learning his name?

The new governor finds the name too tedious to remember, so the cell number does instead.

How does Dantès finally escape the fortress?

He takes the dead priest's place in the sack, cuts his way out under water and is picked up by Genoese smugglers.

How many years in total does Dantès spend in prison?

Six alone on the edge of suicide, then eight being educated by the priest through the tunnel.

Where is the treasure hidden that the dying priest tells Dantès about?

It belonged to the priest's former employer, Cardinal Spada; Dantès later buys the island and a count's title from Tuscany.

From whom does Dantès purchase the island and his title of count?

Dumas himself sailed round the real island of Montecristo in 1841 with a young Bonaparte and promised to put its name in a book title.

Under which alias does Dantès first return to his home port to gather information?

Sinbad the Sailor is the persona he uses for dealing with smugglers and brigands.

Under which alias does Dantès perform random acts of generosity?

In that guise he even tells an investigator that the Count's true name is Monsieur Zaccone.

What does Dantès do to save his old employer Morrel from bankruptcy?

The rebuilt ship sails into harbour with a full cargo just as Morrel is about to shoot himself.

In which year does Dantès reappear in society as the Count of Monte Cristo?

By then Fernand is a count and general and Villefort a royal prosecutor.

Which Roman bandit chief, an ally of the Count, stages the kidnapping of Mercédès's son in Rome?

The same bandit later holds the fleeing banker and makes him pay ruinous prices for every meal until his stolen millions are gone.

Who is Haydée, the Count's ward?

Fernand betrayed and murdered her father and sold her into slavery; her testimony destroys him, and she leaves with the Count at the end.

What did Villefort do to the baby born of his affair with the banker's wife?

The Count's steward Bertuccio dug the infant up; he grew into the criminal Benedetto, later passed off as 'Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti'.

How does the Count wreck the banker's investments?

The optical telegraph lie costs the banker hundreds of thousands of francs in one afternoon.

Which member of the Villefort household begins poisoning the family?

She wants everything to pass to her son Édouard; Noirtier secretly builds up Valentine's tolerance to the poison in advance.

How does the paralysed old Noirtier communicate?

He keeps every faculty of his mind and acts as Valentine's protector.

Which young man challenges the Count to a duel after his father is disgraced?

His mother tells him the truth overnight, and he apologises publicly on the duelling ground instead of firing.

How does Fernand, Count de Morcerf, die?

His wife and son have just disowned him and renounced his title, and the Count has revealed his true face.

What happens to Villefort when the Count reveals his identity?

He has just found his wife dead by her own hand and his small son poisoned; the Count's failure to revive the boy makes him question what he has done.

Which character's death makes the Count wonder whether his vengeance has gone too far?

He tries and fails to resuscitate the poisoned child.

Which enemy does the Count ultimately forgive and let go with 50,000 francs?

The banker had embezzled five million francs from a hospital fund; the Count returns it anonymously.

Which two words, in the novel's last line, contain 'all human wisdom'?

The line closes a letter left for Maximilien and Valentine on the island where the Count has left them part of his fortune.

With whom does the Count sail away to the East at the very end?

She has declared her love; Mercédès goes back to live alone in Dantès's old house.

Which real French shoemaker's revenge story, told by Jacques Peuchet, inspired the novel?

Falsely denounced as a spy in 1807, he inherited a cleric's fortune in prison and murdered his three betrayers, one with a dagger reading 'Number One'.

Which of the shoemaker's betrayers married his fiancée while he was jailed, and was stabbed for it?

Picaud had first lured the man's son into crime and his daughter into prostitution.

Which future emperor was the young Bonaparte who sailed round Montecristo with Dumas in 1841?

Dumas promised the young man he would put the island's name in a book title, then wrote up the story in his 1860 Causeries.

In which newspaper was the novel serialised in eighteen parts?

The first book edition from Pétion filled 18 volumes, two in 1844 and sixteen in 1845.

Under what title did the first English abridgement appear in Ainsworth's Magazine in 1845?

The 1846 Chapman and Hall version, still the most common English text, softened Eugénie's lesbian traits; a 1996 Penguin translation restored them.

Whose 1996 Penguin translation restored the material Victorian translators had cut?

Among the restorations were references to the banker's daughter Eugénie's lesbianism, which she acts on by fleeing Paris with her girlfriend.

Which 1880 American novel of vengeance was inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo?

Later descendants include Alfred Bester's science-fiction The Stars My Destination and Stephen Fry's The Stars' Tennis Balls.

Which 2011 American TV drama was billed as an adaptation of the novel?

The Simpsons had already done it as 'The Count of Monte Fatso' in a 2007 episode.

What was the title of the 2004 Japanese anime that moved the story to the 51st century?

The name means 'The King of the Cave', a nod to the treasure grotto; a 1979 Japanese TV serial had set the story in the Edo period.

Who played Dantès in the 2002 film directed by Kevin Reynolds?

Guy Pearce was Fernand and Richard Harris the Abbé; a young Henry Cavill played Albert in one of his first roles.

Which Mediterranean island's capital stood in for the French port in the 2002 film?

Valletta played the port; the prison was Saint Mary's Tower on the tiny island of Comino.

Who played Dantès in the Mercury Theatre on the Air's 1938 radio version?

It aired on 29 August 1938, two months before the same troupe's War of the Worlds panic.

The real Château d'If sits in which island group off the French coast?

The Île d'If is the smallest of the group, about 3.5 km west of the Old Port, and boats run to it from the harbour.

Which French king ordered the Château d'If built in the 1520s?

He had spotted the island's value on a visit in 1516; the fortress never actually had to repel an attack.

Which American writer toured the château in 1867 and described it in The Innocents Abroad?

A guide showed his party a cell said to have held the 'Iron Mask'; the prison did not open to the public until 1890.

Where were Dumas's ashes reinterred in 2002, on the bicentenary of his birth?

President Chirac ordered the move from Villers-Cotterêts, where he was born and had been buried in 1870.

What was Dumas's father, a general of the Revolution, by birth?

The general's rise under the Revolution shaped his son's conflicted feelings about Bonapartism, which run through the novel.

What did Dumas name the country house he built outside Paris?

It has been restored as a museum; he was frequently insolvent despite his earnings, with scholars counting some 40 mistresses.

Which collaborating ghostwriter supplied the plot outlines from which Dumas expanded the novel?

Maquet worked with Dumas on many of his novels, though his name never appeared on the title pages.

Under what persona does Dantès conduct business with smugglers and save the Morrel family?

His other disguises include the priest Abbé Busoni and the English eccentric Lord Wilmore.

What is the name of the Count's steward, whose past is tied to Villefort's buried infant?

He rescued the baby, whom his sister Assunta raised as Benedetto; the boy later murdered her and was sent to the galleys.

Under what false Italian noble identity does Benedetto enter Parisian society?

The Count anonymously hires him for the impersonation, and Danglars betroths his daughter Eugénie to the impostor.

What is distinctive about Ali, the Count's Nubian servant?

Jacopo, the poor smuggler who helps Dantès survive after his escape, is rewarded with his own ship and crew.

With whom does Eugénie Danglars flee Paris after her engagement collapses?

The free-spirited Eugénie aspires to be an independent artist, and the novel implies the two women are lovers.

How does the Count protect Villefort's daughter from the poisoner in her own household?

Noirtier had also secretly dosed her with a drug giving limited resistance; a month later the Count reunites her with Maximilien on Monte Cristo.