Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal And The Real Count Of Monte Cristo

Author: Tom Reiss

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $35.00 AUD
  • : 9781846556623
  • : Vintage Publishing
  • : Harvill Secker
  • :
  • : 0.564
  • : April 2012
  • : 234mm X 153mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 35.0
  • : April 2012
  • :
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Tom Reiss
  • :
  • : Paperback
  • :
  • :
  • : en
  • : 944.04092
  • : 400
  • :
  • : Yes
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Barcode 9781846556623
9781846556623

Description

Who was the real Count of Monte Cristo? In this extraordinary biography, Tom Reiss traces the almost unbelievable life of the man who inspired not only Monte Cristo, but all three of the Musketeers: the novelist's own father. Born in St Dominigue in 1762, the son of a French nobleman and a sugar plantation slave, General Alexandre Dumas did not have an auspicious start in life. Things got worse when his father sold him into slavery to pay his passage back to Normandy. But six months later, Dumas' fortunes changed. His father bought him out of slavery and raised him in France, where Dumas went to the nation's finest schools and fencing academies, and having enrolled in the army became known as France's most handsome and strongest soldier. By the time Napoleon invaded Egypt, Dumas was his top cavalry commander. But Napoleon was threatened by the physical prowess and popularity of this black nobleman. He engineered his disgrace and imprisonment, and to please the sugar growers reintroduced slavery. A brief flowering of freedom and equality was over and forgotten, but Dumas' legacy would live on in the novels of the son who adored him. Reiss tells this tale with magisterial authority. Long years of research have led him across Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East in search of forgotten documents. He has journeyed through the Alps where Dumas scaled unscalable ice cliffs. He has walked the streets of Cairo where Dumas' intrepid cavalry charge is still remembered. The result is an enthralling book that entertains, astounds and triumphantly resurrects a lost hero from the world's first multiracial society.

Promotion info

An entralling biography by a masterful writer that traces the life of the real Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

Author description

Born in 1964, Tom Reiss is an American author and journalist who lives in New York. He is the author of The Orientalist, an acclaimed biography of Lev Nussimbaum (aka Kurban Said) which was shortlisted for the 2006 Samuel Johnson Prize.