Alexandre Dumas wanted to adapt "The Count of Monte Cristo". 1851.

Alexandre Dumas (1802.1870)

Autographed letter signed to his friend Jean-Baptiste Porcher.

One page in-12° on blue paper.

No place or date. [Paris. Late 1851]

"I just treated him at Montecristo in one evening."

Alexandre Dumas is working hard with Marc Fournier to have two of his masterpieces, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Vicomte de Bragelonne, adapted for the stage.

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"My dear Porcher, either take Fournier's note for me—which you can do—I believe without fear at this moment—or endorse it for me. I have just negotiated with him the Montecristo in one evening and the Bragelonne. I kiss you on one cheek and Madame Porcher on the other. Yours, A. Dumas."

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Monte Cristo and Bragelonne at the theatre.

Immediately after the publication of his novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, in 1844, Alexandre Dumas began adapting his masterpiece for the stage. At the opening of his Théâtre-Historique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris in 1847, he planned to stage his masterpiece for the inauguration. However, it was Queen Margot that premiered at the Théâtre-Historique on February 21, 1847.

The Count of Monte Cristo, one of Dumas' longest novels, was finally adapted into four dramas, first performed in February 1848 at the Théâtre-Historique for the first two parts, then three years later, in April and May 1851, at the Ambigu-Comique (Dumas had been forced to close his theatre in October 1850).

The adaptation was deemed too long by both the public and the critics. Dumas therefore sought to rework his adaptation into a single evening to satisfy the demands of the theatrical stage, and it was in this way that he approached Marc Fournier (1815-1879), who had just taken over the management of the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin.

Following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, published in serial form from 1847 to 1850, constitutes the last part of the Musketeers trilogy created by Alexandre Dumas and his collaborator Auguste Maquet.

The projects that Dumas considered with Fournier did not come to fruition.

The Vicomte de Bragelonne was not partially adapted for the stage until ten years later, in 1861, as a drama entitled Le Prisonnier de la Bastille, and The Comte de Monte-Cristo, in a condensed, one-night-only version, was premiered even later and posthumously. The play was finally revised by Émile Blavet and premiered at the Porte Saint-Martin in March 1894.

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It is rare, not to say exceptional, to find the occurrence "Monte-Cristo" in the writings of Alexandre Dumas.