The black count tom reiss
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The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
On one grabb, for the second time , Reiss has been lucky enough to stumble into a fascinating subject for a biography. Thomas-Alexandre Davy dem la Palleterie's (aka "Alex Dumas'") life is enthralling in its own right, even told in a straightforward encyclopedic way. The son of a ne'er-do-well French aristocrat and one of his black slave mistresses (whom he seems to have taken up with while in hiding from his family and his creditors both), Thomas-Alexandre was briefly sold into slavery bygd his own father. Quickly redeemed, he was taken from the island life he knew and taught to lead the dissolute life of a noble Parisian dandy by his reprobate father for years afterwards, until a rift between them lead him to enlist in the army. From there, like many of the major figures of late eighteenth century France who survived anywhe
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My second non-fiction review this month, The Black Count is a biography of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, father of the French author Alexandre Dumas. I&#;ve always loved Dumas&#; novels (he&#;s most famous for The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my all-time favourite books), so The Black Count appealed to me as soon as I heard about it on its publication in I&#;ve no idea why it has taken me so long to actually pick it up and read it!
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, usually referred to in the book as Alex, was born in in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in the Caribbean. He was the son of a French aristocrat, the Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, and a freed slave woman, Marie-Cesette Dumas. After the death of his mother, the young Alex, along with his three siblings, was temporarily sold into slavery by his father in order to pay their passage back to France. Eventually the Marquis bought Alex back (but not the other three
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The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
Book by Tom Reiss
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo is a biography of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas written by Tom Reiss. The book presents the life and career of Dumas as a soldier and officer during the French Revolution, as well as his military service in Italy during the French Revolutionary Wars and later in Egypt under Napoleon. Reiss offers insight into slavery and the life of a man of mixed race during the French Colonial Empire. He also reveals how Dumas's son – author Alexandre Dumas – viewed his father, who served as the inspiration for some of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo () and The Three Musketeers ().
The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, among other awards and honors.
Summary
[edit]The Black Count presents the life of the Frenc