The Count of Monte-Cristo.

DUMAS, Alexandre [Alexander].

Item Number: 121928

London: London: Chapman and Hall, 1846.

First edition in English of the author’s masterpiece, published just one year after the original French edition and before the American first. Octavo, 2 volumes, bound in full morocco, gilt titles to the spine, raised bands, panels with single fillet border, surrounding a double fillet frame filled with diaper pattern in blind with gilt dots, inner dentelles. Twenty wood-engraved plates after Henry Valentin. In near fine condition. An exceptional first edition.

The Count of Monte Cristo, in particular, is "perhaps the outstanding work of fiction to reveal the futility of human vengeance, even when it attains its utmost completeness. Maurice Baring calls it the most popular book in the world" (Frank Wild Reed). "One of the best thrillers ever written" (Reid, 134).