![]() Unfortunate as this is, one has to admit it with as much philosophy as may be available for the purpose. One of the results is that those delightfully interminable romances which beguiled the nights and days of our ancestors in so pleasant a fashion are now given no more than a passing nod of recognition. A distinct prejudice against length now exists: a feeling that there is a necessary antithesis between quantity and quality. The prevailing taste for brevity has made the spacious days of the stately three-volume novel seem very remote indeed. The Standard Abridged Edition page at The Abbreviated Monte Cristo says copies go back to 1928 at least and gives a listing of which contemporary editions contain the text and a useful explanation of how to identify a copy based on the table of contents or first page.Īnother obvious sign of the standard abridged edition is this translator’s note: “This Dover edition, first published in 2007, is a republication of a standard abridged edition.” How do I know? I found this note in the Dover abridged edition: I don’t know! But the truth is that a particular abridged version of the text is commonly reprinted. Who created the “standard abridged edition”? When? (In 2018, there was no AmazonClassics or Standard Ebooks edition, but now there is! Yay!) I did some major reformatting and content updates in December 2021. This post, the seed from which WeLoveTranslations eventually sprouted, was originally a post I wrote for my blog,, in December 2018. Did he, like, write any other books, bro?) The Count of Monte Cristo Best Translation Page History For example, someone was once charging $6.00 for a version set entirely in bold italics, and someone is still charging $2.99 for the Gutenberg version but with this hideous cover:įor some reason, there’s a nearly invisible hyphen between “Monte” and “Cristo, and the author is helpfully listed as “Alexandre Dumas: The famous French Writer”. Most ebooks that sell for $0.53 to $9.67 are no better than what you’d get for free and quite possibly worse. TAMC recommends the Lowell Bair abridgement. The Abbreviated Monte Cristo has a ton of info on abridgements and children’s, comics, and manga adaptations. Maybe that’s rationalization and maybe that’s logic, but either way, perhaps you’d be better served by a shorter version of this classic story. Moreover, serialized stories had to remind readers of what had already happened. Dumas was paid by the word, and was therefore motivated to include words that were not, strictly speaking, necessary to the story. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, I get where you’re coming from. The Count of Monte Cristo: Abridged Translations Keep reading to learn how to choose one that’s right for you. Still, there are a TON of versions out there. 1990 – Anonymous, revised by David CowardĪpart from Robin Buss, I don’t know of any translator who re-did the whole thing from scratch.1846 – Anonymous, published by Chapman and Hall.There have been… three? It’s actually more complicated than that, but… according to Wikipedia, editions before the anonymous 1846 translation were abridged, and pretty much every edition after the anonymous 1846 translation was based on it, Bair and Buss being the exceptions. If you’re not too concerned with the details, jump down to the conclusion. That’s sorted, then.Īs soon as you visit the library or bookshop or click over to Amazon, you realize there are a host of publishers offering a myriad of paperback and hardcover editions and dozens of digital versions. You’ll find a copy in any decent library or bookstore, and if you like reading ebooks, you can download the novel for free because it’s not under copyright. This massive novel has been available in English since the 1840s. So you want to read Alexandre Dumas’ classic adventure, The Count of Monte Cristo. Which translation or edition of The Count of Monte Cristo should I read? ![]()
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