WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 2013







'Completely absorbing'



Amanda Foreman







'Enthralling'



Guardian







'The Three Musketeers! The Count of Monte Cristo! The stories of course



are fiction. But here a prize-winning author shows us that the inspiration for



the swashbuckling stories was, in fact, Dumas's own father, Alex - the son



of a marquis and a black slave... He achieved a giddy ascent from private



in the Dragoons to the rank of general; an outsider who had grown up



among slaves, he was all for Liberty and Equality. Alex Dumas was the



stuff of legend'



Daily Mail







So how did such this extraordinary man get erased by history? Why are



there no statues of 'Monsieur Humanity' as his troops called him? The



Black Count uncovers what happened and the role Napoleon played in



Dumas's downfall. By walking the same ground as Dumas - from Haiti to



the Pyramids, Paris to the prison cell at Taranto - Reiss, like the novelist



before him, triumphantly resurrects this forgotten hero.







'Entrances from first to last. Dumas the novelist would be proud'



Independent







'Brilliant' Glasgow Herald