‘Les suites des suites’: Alexandre Dumas’s Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and the News

Abstract

ABSTRACTTaking as its subject Alexandre Dumas’s Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844-46), this article explores what the literary critic Alfred Nettement dubbed the newspaper’s ‘influence contagieuse’ under the July Monarchy, and considers the impact of journalism on this ever-popular roman-feuilleton. Reading Dumas’s text alongside the writings of nineteenth-century critics, the article traces the ways in which Monte-Cristo reflects on the pressures and rhythms of serial publication – not simply as a consequence of its structure but as a thematic concern crucial to particular strands of its meandering narrative. The problem of endings is central here, with Monte-Cristo emblematic of the ways in which the possibility of closure is repeatedly deferred in the roman-feuilleton – replaced, instead, by a series of suites.