The Thousand and One Ghosts

Coming back into town after a hunting expedition, Alexandre Dumas witnesses an incredible scene: a man has come to hand himself in to the mayor after decapitating his wife, terrified by the fact that her severed head spoke to him even after her death. This prompts the guests at a dinner Dumas attends later that evening to exchange stories of death and the supernatural, ranging from accounts of the guillotine during the Terror to tales of vampires and fratricide in the Carpathians.The Thousand and One Ghosts – here presented in its first and only translation into English – is a gloriously macabre work by the celebrated author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, which also touches on the serious political issue of capital punishment.

TLS

“[One Thousand and One Ghosts] deserves to have been disinterred and brought back to haunt us, as one of this fine and varied series of translations.”

About the Author

Alexandre Dumas could have been a character from one of his novels. A true romantic, he was the son of Napoleon's famous General Dumas, a prolific writer of over 277 volumes, a revolutionary and a man of tremendous appetites. He was born on July 24, 1802 and died penniless but happy on December 5, 1870, a refugee from his own excesses.

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