<b>The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas</b>&nbsp;(French:&nbsp;<i>Le Comte de Monte-Cristo</i>) is an&nbsp;adventure novel&nbsp;written by French author&nbsp;Alexandre Dumas&nbsp;(<i>p&egrave;re</i>) completed in 1844. It is one of the author&#39;s more popular works, along with&nbsp;<i>The Three Musketeers</i>.<br /><br />The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the&nbsp;Mediterranean&nbsp;during the historical events of 1815&ndash;1839: the era of the&nbsp;Bourbon Restoration&nbsp;through the reign of&nbsp;Louis-Philippe of France. It begins on the day that&nbsp;Napoleon&nbsp;left his first island of exile, Elba, beginning the&nbsp;Hundred Days&nbsp;period when Napoleon returned to power. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book, an adventure story centrally concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness. It centers on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune, and sets about exacting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment.<br /><br />Before he can marry his fianc&eacute;e Merc&eacute;d&egrave;s,&nbsp;Edmond Dant&egrave;s, a nineteen-year-old Frenchman, and first mate of the&nbsp;<i>Pharaon</i>, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the&nbsp;Ch&acirc;teau d&#39;If, a grim island fortress off&nbsp;Marseille. A fellow prisoner, Abb&eacute; Faria, correctly deduces that his jealous rival Fernand Mondego, envious crewmate Danglars, and double-dealing magistrate De Villefort turned him in. Faria inspires his escape and guides him to a fortune in&nbsp;treasure.<br /><br />As the powerful and mysterious Count of&nbsp;Monte Cristo&nbsp;(Italy), Dant&egrave;s arrives from the Orient to enter the fashionable Parisian world of the 1830s and avenge himself on the men who conspired to destroy him.