Le Comte de Monte-Christo

A rare Belgian pirate edition in 8 tomes bound in 4, published shortly after the novel's first serial appearance in the Journal des débats from August 28, 1844 to January 15, 1846. Complete with all half titles and title pages. They are all dated 1845, except for the last two (vol. 7-8) dated 1846. The edition includes the misprint "Christo" for "Cristo", present in the pre-first edition of the Journal des débats, and corrected for the first time at the end of 1846 in the first illustrated edition.

Rare pirate pre-first edition of the greatest revenge novel of all time. Given the extreme rarity of the French first edition in book form, these pirate editions - either predating or simultaenously published with the first Parisian edi­tion - have become rare and highly sought-after.

Contem­porary brown half shagreen, spine ruled in gilt, gilt titles and volumes, brown marbled paper boards, marbled edg­es. Spines uniformly lightened, rubbed corners and edges with small paper and leather tears, scuffs to boards. One quire slightly sticking out in vol. 1, 2 and vol. 3, 4, others misaligned in the other 2 volumes.

Operating outside of French copyright law, Belgian publishers issued numer­ous books published in France as soon as they appeared in newspapers. Hau­man, the publisher of this pirate edition, made a specialty of publishing dozens of Dumas novels - sometimes even as pre-first editions, before the French ones. Only this pirate edition and three others, all Belgian (Méline et Cans, Lebègue, and Muquardt) were published sequentially, their volumes closely following the publication of new journal installments, even before the novel was fully issued serially.
Munro, Alexandre Dumas père, a bibliogra­phy of works published in French, 1825-1900.