The Black Count

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

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

WINNER OF THE 2013 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 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 at the height of the Revolution -- until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat. The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world's first multi-racial society. 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. But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.

WINNER OF THE 2013 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 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 at the height of the Revolution -- until he met an implacable enemy he could not defeat. The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure story, a lushly textured evocation of 18th-century France, and a window into the modern world's first multi-racial society. 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. But it is also a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.