The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

by Tom Reiss

Alexandre Dumas, the French author and playwright, was drawing on a rich seam of family legend when he composed his 1846 work of classic literature The Count of Monte Cristo: his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was a swashbuckling military leader during the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. He was also the son of a Black Haitian slave, rising to remarkable power in a period of finely balance race relations. Time magazine described Tom Reiss’s hit biography as “one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that also sheds light on the flukey historical moment that made it possible.”