The Count of Monte Cristo - Publication

Publication

The Count of Monte Cristo was originally published in the Journal des Débats in eighteen parts. Publication ran from August 28, 1844 to January 15, 1846. It was first published in Paris by Pétion in 18 volumes (1844-5). Complete versions of the novel in the original French were published throughout the nineteenth century.

The most common English translation was originally published in 1846 by Chapman and Hall. Most unabridged English editions of the novel, including the Modern Library and Oxford World's Classics editions, use this translation, although Penguin Classics published a new translation by Robin Buss in 1996. Buss' translation updated the language, is more accessible to modern readers, and reverted content that was modified in the 1846 translation because of Victorian English social restrictions (for example, references to Eugénie's lesbian traits and behavior) to Dumas' original version. Other English translations of the unabridged work exist, but are rarely seen in print and most borrow from the 1846 anonymous translation. Everyman's Library published a revised English translation by Peter Washington in 2009, with an introduction by Umberto Eco. This edition claims to have streamlined the 1846 translation by removing some repetitions and redunduncies in Dumas' original text.

Alexandre Dumas wrote a set of three plays that collectively told the story of The Count of Monte Cristo: Monte Cristo (1848), Le Comte de Morcerf (1851), and Villefort (1851). The book itself went on to inspire the plot for a wide array of novels, from Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur (1880), a Science Fiction retelling in Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, to Stephen Fry's contemporary The Stars' Tennis Balls,