This is the first article in a new Zeale Lifestyle series featuring reviews of classic works of literature from the 1000 Good Books Project, started by a Catholic homeschooling family on a mission to bring an affordable, trustworthy, comprehensive library of audiobooks to families.
You probably haven’t read The Count of Monte Cristo. Fair enough. It was written when the French Revolution and Napoleon were in living memory. It is also long — more than 1,000 pages, with 117 chapters. That is roughly twice as long as Crime and Punishment, three times longer than A Tale of Two Cities, and four times as long as To Kill a Mockingbird!
And yet.
And yet it is in print right now, in pretty much every modern language, even in multiple translations. And it has been for almost 200 years.
If you search “Should I read The Count of Monte Cristo?” you find post after post of people who tentatively started reading, and are blown away by how gripping, compelling, and moving the story is.
So our pitch is: Skip the latest season of whatever show and embark on a long, dark journey through betrayal, tragedy, unjust imprisonment, revenge, conspiracies, redemption, and hope. You won’t regret it. It will stay with you for years after you would have forgotten a passing TV show, and it will enrich your life.
What if the people you trusted hatched a plan to betray you, take everything from you, and leave you to die?
Edmund Dantes had everything. He had a budding career as a newly promoted ship’s captain, a beautiful fiancé named Mercedes, a loving father, and a patron in the merchant owner of his ship.
But envy and malice drive people to do terrible things. Four men, for different reasons, set in motion a plan that lands Dantes in a dungeon in the infamous prison, the Château d'If.
They never thought their secret would come to light, or that Dantes would find a path to retribution.
“And now,” said the stranger, “farewell, goodness, humanity, gratitude ... Farewell all those feelings that nourish and illuminate the heart! I have taken the place of Providence to reward the good; now let the avenging God make way for me to punish the wrongdoer!”
That journey has everything a person could want: romance, sword fights, smugglers, hidden treasure, revenge, and more plot twists and turns than a season of “Breaking Bad.”
And whether it is a comedy or a tragedy is up to you to decide.
A larger-than-life author
Alexandre Dumas’ father was the son of a slave woman and a French military nobleman, who joined the military and was the first soldier of African descent to be promoted to the rank of General in the French army.
Dumas was a prolific writer (who also collaborated with other uncredited writers, including on The Count of Monte Cristo). He was fabulously successful, earning vast sums from his novels. But, he lived so lavishly that he bankrupted himself repeatedly.
Dumas was described by one of his friends as: “the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth.… His tongue was like a windmill — once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself.… When sober — which was not very often — he was moody and saturnine; when mellow, delightful; when drunk, mad.”
Dumas’ two greatest lasting successes were The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, which have both been adapted for the screen many times. He was rivals with Victor Hugo and encouraged his friend Jules Verne to become a writer instead of a lawyer.
No matter how troubled and tempestuous his personal life was, he was a master of intricate plots, and The Count of Monte Cristo is his grand showpiece!
The Thousand Good Books
We hope you decide to give it a try — you won’t regret it! Enjoy listening to The 1000 Good Books Project’s audiobook of The Count of Monte Cristo. This audiobook and many other classics, including Aesop’s Fables, Winnie the Pooh, the Just So Stories, Tom Sawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, The Secret Garden, The Wind in the Willows, Sherlock Holmes, The Call of the Wild, The Three Musketeers, Sense and Sensibility, The Great Gatsby, A Tale of Two Cities, and others are being reintroduced to families through the efforts of the 1000 Good Books Project. Their affordable, trustworthy, comprehensive library of audiobooks is inspired by Professor John Senior’s list of what he termed the “thousand good books.” The 1000 Good Books Project hopes to give families the resources to form the minds and hearts of the next generation with the classic literature of the past. Check them out and see if audio books can be a window into a larger world of literature for you and your family!