‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ in a New Abridged Edition

The Alexandre Dumas favorite is rereleased just in time for summer reading.

This abridged version of an Alexandre Dumas classic is perfect for first-time readers.

These days, books with exciting plots tend to be badly written. Award-winning books, on the other hand, are almost always boring, involving lots of character development and no interesting outward events.

Alexandre Dumas’s classic adventure novel, “The Count of Monte Cristo,” is neither of these things—unless one happens to pick up one of the countless abridged versions of the book. Most of these, to suit the modern proclivity for dumbing things down, sacrifice its literary merits on the altar of plot. Fortunately a new abridgement, the Classical Poets Student Edition, has appeared to remedy this problem.

A Very Long Novel

Many people today are familiar with the story of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” although most have never read the novel. Dumas tells the story of Edmond Dantès, a young sailor whose promising future is destroyed when he is falsely accused of treason by jealous rivals. Imprisoned for 14 years in the Château d’If, Dantès learns of a hidden treasure on the Isle of Monte Cristo from a fellow inmate.