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The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask
Alexandre Dumas was one of the most prolific and celebrated writers in the nineteenth century. His best-known works are historical epics richly infused with romance, intrigue, passion, suspense, and swashbuckling adventure. This collection brings together three novels that are the cornerstones of his literary legacy - The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask.
Dumas excelled in the creation of heroes who are larger-than-life and whose thrilling exploits stem from their dedication to noble causes. The exotic sweep and exhilarating action of these stories are unparalleled in modern literature.
Alexandre Dumas: Three Novels is part of Barnes & Noble's Library of Essential Writers. Each title in the series presents the finest works - complete and unabridged - from one of the greatest writers in literature in magnificent, elegantly designed hard-back editions. Every volume also includes an original introduction that provides the reader with enlightening information on the writer's life and works.
1406 pages, hardcover
Published September 25, 2006
67 people are currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Alexandre Dumas
6,985 books12.3k followersThis note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils.
Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso
Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 31, 2022
Note: This review only covers one of the three novels in this collection, The Count of Monte Cristo. Also be advised that there are spoilers included.
This novel is too dense and rich to allow for comprehensive commentary; anyone short of a literary scholar with chapters to fill could hope to analyze all of its complexities. The best which an uncouth bumpkin such as myself can hope to do is register broad impressions and whichever arbitrary observations present themselves most prominently.
Obviously one of the major themes -- if not the major theme -- is that of revenge or, more to the point, divine vs. human justice. The titular character (the "Count of Fancy Sandwich," as I like to refer to him) is a compelling case study in the nurturing of vengeance and the pathologies which that engenders. This is a guy who can definitely hold a grudge. Not that he doesn't have perfectly legitimate reasons for doing so. But what the author is able to convey so convincingly is how a grudge, nursed for decades, can push an otherwise good-hearted, noble person to the very edge of his humanity, to within a hair's breadth of the blurry line which delineates normative behaviors from psychoses. We don't blame Edmond Dantès, and even empathize closely with him for a good portion of this tale. But there does come a point when we begin to question whether his drive for revenge has rendered him demented, whether he has crossed well beyond the blurry line deep into the heart of unhinged territory. And he himself ultimately acknowledges the validity of this question, albeit long after the reader has formed their own conclusion on the matter. Dantès is an early model of the anti-hero.
We ultimately excuse Dumas for weaving so many uncanny coincidences and strokes of fortune, be they good or ill, into his tale. The author is not concerned with creating a believable tale so much as he is with exploring the psychology of vengeance and the broader ethical questions which that entails. Why, for example, place such an incalculable fortune in the hands of Dantès? For that matter, why similarly elevate his tormentors with considerable wealth and status? The answer seems to be that had Dumas statically maintained the lowly station of life of each of his central characters, his tale would have lost a considerable amount of its force. A story of vengeance pursued by a lower-class protagonist against his social peers would have been unlikely to offer the same opportunities for intensifying the drama: in short, the higher these characters rise, the further they have to fall. And this is why the catharsis of Dumas' novel is so overwhelming. Similarly, drawing out the several climaxes, each related to one of Dantès' antagonists, across such a huge swath of such a bulky novel also contributes significantly to the sense of satisfaction which the reader derives from Dantès' quest for justice.
It is also worth noting that throughout the bulk of this novel, Dantès' revenge is depicted primarily as his own, personal pursuit of justice. It is only toward the end, when Dumas finally links the character of Dantès directly and irrevocably to his persona as the Count, that we become fully cognizant of the extent to which his retribution has been divinely inspired and directed all along. To be sure, we are given hints much earlier than in the closing pages, but it is only at the end that Dumas makes this motivation explicit, with Dantès literally comparing his actions to the rebelliousness, and ultimate submission, of Satan.
Nor is that the only biblical sub-text. We spend hundreds of pages watching Dantès playing God, even to the point of paralleling the dichotomy between the Old and New Testaments. Caderousse and Morcerf, for example, are subjected to Mosaic justice, an eye for a merciless eye. In the case of Villefort, the lust for revenge results in collateral damage, when Mosaic law causes the unintended death of Edouard, an innocent (albeit a precocious and obnoxious one). Finally, in the case of Danglars, arguably the worst offender of all, since he was the one who ultimately gave birth to all the evil which Dantès endured, we see the Count embrace a merciful grace and forgiveness, which is almost Christ-like in its inexplicable magnanimity.
To be sure, there is so very much more here to unpack. For example, the complex relationship between Dantès and Mercédès; the Count's guardianship over the Morrel clan; his numerous alter-egos, sometime pitted against one another, which might even suggest a sort of dissociative disorder; the less-than-entirely-subtle allusions to Eugénie's lesbianism, which must, at the time of publication, been considered a shocking subject to treat as openly as Dumas chose to do; and many other details, both major and minor. (Why, for example, leave the final fate of Benedetto a mystery?) It would, indeed, take a closer reading and analysis of the text than any casual reviewer can hope to provide in a short space to even begin to do this novel proper justice. But I can say, in summary, that this is one of those long-form classics which is unlikely to disappoint the average reader and which is less problematic in its central themes than many works of a like nature from a similar era.
This novel is too dense and rich to allow for comprehensive commentary; anyone short of a literary scholar with chapters to fill could hope to analyze all of its complexities. The best which an uncouth bumpkin such as myself can hope to do is register broad impressions and whichever arbitrary observations present themselves most prominently.
Obviously one of the major themes -- if not the major theme -- is that of revenge or, more to the point, divine vs. human justice. The titular character (the "Count of Fancy Sandwich," as I like to refer to him) is a compelling case study in the nurturing of vengeance and the pathologies which that engenders. This is a guy who can definitely hold a grudge. Not that he doesn't have perfectly legitimate reasons for doing so. But what the author is able to convey so convincingly is how a grudge, nursed for decades, can push an otherwise good-hearted, noble person to the very edge of his humanity, to within a hair's breadth of the blurry line which delineates normative behaviors from psychoses. We don't blame Edmond Dantès, and even empathize closely with him for a good portion of this tale. But there does come a point when we begin to question whether his drive for revenge has rendered him demented, whether he has crossed well beyond the blurry line deep into the heart of unhinged territory. And he himself ultimately acknowledges the validity of this question, albeit long after the reader has formed their own conclusion on the matter. Dantès is an early model of the anti-hero.
We ultimately excuse Dumas for weaving so many uncanny coincidences and strokes of fortune, be they good or ill, into his tale. The author is not concerned with creating a believable tale so much as he is with exploring the psychology of vengeance and the broader ethical questions which that entails. Why, for example, place such an incalculable fortune in the hands of Dantès? For that matter, why similarly elevate his tormentors with considerable wealth and status? The answer seems to be that had Dumas statically maintained the lowly station of life of each of his central characters, his tale would have lost a considerable amount of its force. A story of vengeance pursued by a lower-class protagonist against his social peers would have been unlikely to offer the same opportunities for intensifying the drama: in short, the higher these characters rise, the further they have to fall. And this is why the catharsis of Dumas' novel is so overwhelming. Similarly, drawing out the several climaxes, each related to one of Dantès' antagonists, across such a huge swath of such a bulky novel also contributes significantly to the sense of satisfaction which the reader derives from Dantès' quest for justice.
It is also worth noting that throughout the bulk of this novel, Dantès' revenge is depicted primarily as his own, personal pursuit of justice. It is only toward the end, when Dumas finally links the character of Dantès directly and irrevocably to his persona as the Count, that we become fully cognizant of the extent to which his retribution has been divinely inspired and directed all along. To be sure, we are given hints much earlier than in the closing pages, but it is only at the end that Dumas makes this motivation explicit, with Dantès literally comparing his actions to the rebelliousness, and ultimate submission, of Satan.
Nor is that the only biblical sub-text. We spend hundreds of pages watching Dantès playing God, even to the point of paralleling the dichotomy between the Old and New Testaments. Caderousse and Morcerf, for example, are subjected to Mosaic justice, an eye for a merciless eye. In the case of Villefort, the lust for revenge results in collateral damage, when Mosaic law causes the unintended death of Edouard, an innocent (albeit a precocious and obnoxious one). Finally, in the case of Danglars, arguably the worst offender of all, since he was the one who ultimately gave birth to all the evil which Dantès endured, we see the Count embrace a merciful grace and forgiveness, which is almost Christ-like in its inexplicable magnanimity.
To be sure, there is so very much more here to unpack. For example, the complex relationship between Dantès and Mercédès; the Count's guardianship over the Morrel clan; his numerous alter-egos, sometime pitted against one another, which might even suggest a sort of dissociative disorder; the less-than-entirely-subtle allusions to Eugénie's lesbianism, which must, at the time of publication, been considered a shocking subject to treat as openly as Dumas chose to do; and many other details, both major and minor. (Why, for example, leave the final fate of Benedetto a mystery?) It would, indeed, take a closer reading and analysis of the text than any casual reviewer can hope to provide in a short space to even begin to do this novel proper justice. But I can say, in summary, that this is one of those long-form classics which is unlikely to disappoint the average reader and which is less problematic in its central themes than many works of a like nature from a similar era.
July 28, 2014
Adventure classics well worth reading repeatedly.
August 24, 2020
Wakacje są po to, by czytać klasykę.
April 19, 2021
Third read of this book over the last 40 years
March 18, 2009
I was pleasantly surprised by how completely engrossed I became in The Count of Monte Cristo. I knew I would enjoy it but did not expect to love it as much as I did. It was one of those books that I stayed up way too late reading and carried it everywhere with me in order to snatch a few pages of reading every chance I got.
After taking some time to catch up on my sleep, I went on to read The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask--I thoroughly enjoyed the first one but was a little distracted during the Iron Mask by the many references to events that happened between the two books. I rather wished I had read the intermediate ones or at least had access to a brief history of the events that occurred between the two tales.
All in all, the entire volume goes on my recommended list of must-read books.
After taking some time to catch up on my sleep, I went on to read The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask--I thoroughly enjoyed the first one but was a little distracted during the Iron Mask by the many references to events that happened between the two books. I rather wished I had read the intermediate ones or at least had access to a brief history of the events that occurred between the two tales.
All in all, the entire volume goes on my recommended list of must-read books.
April 19, 2022
One of my all time favorites along with The Three Musketeers. The interplay on the characters and the brutal reality of some of the sub plots makes it much more believable and engaging. The very premise of coming back from the grave with untold riches to spoil your enemies is an intriguing one in itself but the story has so much more going on with lovable and despicable characters alike. I've read through it three times and told it in snippets to my family over dinner. Better than bedtime.
August 24, 2020
Finally finished! I understand why it's a classic but, it's too long by half. Narratives within narratives; extraordinary plot devices, and explanations of things probably left unsaid. It may be a function of how long ago it was written; I'm sure it wouldn't get past and modern editor.
If you should decide to read it; I implore you, get the abridged version.
If you should decide to read it; I implore you, get the abridged version.
June 17, 2012
Three of the most brilliant novels of all time. They're so well-written, the characters are well-drawn and so interesting, and the plots are intense.
Want to read
January 7, 2016#
NC
Own in hardback.
Get beginning and end of all three books.
The Three Musketeers
FS: "
LS: "
The Count of Monte Cristo
FS: "
LS: "
The Man in the Iron Mask
FS: "
LS: "
NC
Own in hardback.
Get beginning and end of all three books.
The Three Musketeers
FS: "
LS: "
The Count of Monte Cristo
FS: "
LS: "
The Man in the Iron Mask
FS: "
LS: "
October 19, 2020
5Stars for The Count Of Monte Cristo, 3 stars for The Three Musketeers and The Man In The Iron Mask.
December 25, 2021
A beautiful story about love, betrayal, revenge, redemption and forgiveness.
May 5, 2024
Haven't read The Three Musketeers or The Man in the Iron Mask Yet
May 18, 2025
Classic novel…..filled with delicious revenge!! Honestly one of my favorite reads of all time.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews