TY - BOOK AU - Dumas,Alexandre AU - Waterfield,Robin H. TI - The count of Monte Cristo T2 - Puffin classics SN - 0140373535 (paperback) PY - 1996/// CY - London PB - Puffin N2 - The Count of Monte Cristo was inspired by an anecdote from the Parisian police archives, a pearl of a story, Dumas called it, 'A rough, shapeless pearl, of no value, waiting for its jeweller'. Edmond Dant�'s betrayal, his incarceration in the fortress-prison of If, his search for Abb� Faria's hidden treasure, and his reappearance, now fabulously rich, as the brooding, Byronic and vengeful Count of Monte-Cristo - these are the bare outlines of a book which Thackeray, for one, found impossible to put down. Dumas set his magnificent novel of L'action et l'amour in nineteenth-century metropolitan Paris with interludes in Marseilles and Rome. In it he gave free rein to the sensational - hashish-smoking, vampirism and sex - and to his interest in travel, classical myth, the orient, human psychology and disguises. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-46) is one of the great popular novels of all time, and a landmark in the development of modern popular fiction UR - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140373535/chopaconline-20 ER -