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s that cost him vast amounts of money. He also manipulates Danglars’ unfaithful and dishonest wife, costing Danglars more money, and helps Danglars’ daughter, Eugenie, run away with her female companion. Finally, when Danglars is nearly broke and about to flee without paying any of his creditors, Dantes has the Italian bandit Luigi Vampa kidnap him and relieve him of his remaining money. Dantes spares Danglars’ life, but leaves him penniless.Meanwhile, as these acts of vengeance play out, Dantes also tries to complete one more act of goodness. Dantes wishes to help the brave and honorable Maximilian Morrel, the son of the kind shipowner, so he hatches an elaborate plot to save Maximilian’s iancee, Valentine Villefort, from her murderous stepmother, to ensure that the couple will be truly happy forever. Dantes gives Valentine a pill that makes her appear dead and then carries her off to the island of Monte Cristo. For a month Dantes allows Maximilian to believe that Valentine is dead, which causes Maximilian to long for death himself. Dantes then reveals that Valentine is alive. Having known the depths of despair, Maximilian is now able to experience the heights of ecstasy. Dantes too ultimately finds happiness, when he allows himself to fall in love with the adoring and beautiful Haydee.[2]2.2 Context on the authorAlexandre Dumas was born in 1802 in the village of Villers-Cotterêts, fifty miles northeast of Paris. The younger Dumas was not a good student, but he had excellent handwriting. [3] When he moved to Paris in 1823, hoping to make his fortune as an author, his lovely handwriting earned him a job as a minor clerk. Dumas spent six years as a clerk, during which time he wrote plays, conducted torrid love affairs, and lived beyond his means until in 1829, when he had his first dramatic success with Henry III and His Court. Like his Romantic colleagues, Dumas believed in the principles of social equality and individual rights. [4] He tried to infuse his dramatic works with these principles. Dumas went further than writing about his beliefs, however. He took an active role in the Revolution of 1830, helping to capture a powder magazine at Soissons, and he was appointed organizer of the National Guard at Vendee. Encountering strong local opposition, Dumas gave up the position, refusing to act against the wishes of the majority.Returning to the literary community of Paris, Dumas continued to write popular plays, sticking to historical works that he filled with melodrama. He also began to write travel literature, which led to a walking tour of southern France in 1834 [5] (a tour that he would later put to use in The Count of Monte Cristo). In the late 1830s, Dumas began writing novels, as much for financial gain as for artistic reasons. At that time, it was common for cheap newspapers to run novels in serial form. If a writer was adept at writing quickly and melodramatically, as Dumas was, the financial incentives would be enormous. Dumas was so good at this sort of writing that he sometimes had three or four serial novels running simultaneously. His writing soon made him the most famous Frenchman of his day, and he gained renown throughout the Western world. In 1844, the same year when he published The Three Musketeers, Dumas began the serialization of The Count of Monte Cristo. He continued writing prolifically for most of his life, publishing his last novel, The Prussian Terror, in 1867, three years before his death.Dumas was also