Description
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “richly imagined biography” (The New York Times Book Review) of General Alex Dumas, who rose from slavery to command vast armies in the French Revolutionary Wars—and whose exploits were immortalized in his son’s novels The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers
“Fascinating [and] entertaining.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Remarkable.”—The Boston Globe
“A truly amazing story.”—NPR
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The New Republic, NPR, Salon, Essence
General Alex Dumas is a man almost unknown today, yet his story is strikingly familiar—because his son, the novelist Alexandre Dumas, used his larger-than-life feats as inspiration for such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.
But hidden behind General Dumas’s swashbuckling adventures was an even more incredible secret: he was the son of a black slave—who rose higher in the white world than any man of his race would before our own time. Born in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Alex Dumas made his way to Paris, where he rose to command armies of more than 50,000 men at the height of the Revolution.
No matter how high he soared, Dumas continued to live by his blade and his boldness in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet, because of his unwavering principles, he ultimately became a threat to Napoleon himself.
Time magazine called The Black Count “one of those quintessentially human stories of strength and courage that sheds light on the historical moment that made it possible.” It is also a window into the modern world’s first multiracial society and a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
Table of Contents
prologue, part 1 • February 26, 1806
prologue, part 2 • January 25, 2007
book one
chapter 1 • The Sugar Factory
chapter 2 • The Black Code
chapter 3 • Norman Conquest
chapter 4 • “No One Is a Slave in France”
chapter 5 • Americans in Paris
chapter 6 • Black Count in the City of Light
chapter 7 • A Queen’s Dragoon
book two
chapter 8 • Summers of Revolution
chapter 9 • “Regeneration by Blood”
chapter 10 • “The Black Heart Also Beats for Liberty”
chapter 11 • “Mr. Humanity”
chapter 12 • The Battle for the Top of the World
chapter 13 • The Bottom of the Revolution
chapter 14 • The Siege
chapter 15 • The Black Devil
book three
chapter 16 • Leader of the Expedition
chapter 17 • “ The Delirium of His
Republicanism”
chapter 18 • Dreams on Fire
chapter 19 • Prisoner of the Holy Faith Army
chapter 20 • “ Citizeness Dumas . . . Is Worried
About the Fate of Her Husband”
chapter 21 • The Dungeon
chapter 22 • Wait and Hope
epilogue • The Forgotten Statue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note on Names
Notes
Bibliography
Index
