DUMAS (Alexandre) Le Comte de Monte-Christo. Paris, Pétion, 1845. 18 volumes in-8, half green basane, smooth spine, gilt title between two gilt fillets, smooth edges (Binding of the period). First edition of one of Dumas's masterpieces, by far his rarest, written in collaboration with Auguste Maquet. The title is spelled Monte-Christo in the first editions of the novel. It is one of the rarest and most sought-after first editions of the Romantic period. The novel was first published as a serial in Le Journal des Débats, from 28 August 1844 to 15 January 1846. From its publication until today, it has been immensely popular in France and abroad, as shown by the impressive number of adaptations to film and television, from The Count of Monte Cristo by Francis Boggs and Thomas Persons, one of the first films made in Hollywood, in 1908, to the film by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière released last year. A copy bound in eighteen volumes, all addressed to Pétion and dated 1845, which is extremely rare. Even Lord Henry Seymour's copy - one of the last on the market, now fifteen years ago - was composite, with the first fourteen volumes addressed to Baudry and some dated 1846. Concerning the printers, this copy is consistent with that in the BnF, with the first six volumes printed by the firm Béthune et Plon (t. I-IV), which became Plon frères in January 1845 (t. V-VI), and the following twelve by the printing house A. Henry. Since the sale by Colonel Daniel Sickles (1989, II, no. 313), from which the BnF copy comes (Res P-Y2-3051), only two copies of the first edition of The Count of Monte Cristo have come up for public sale, as far as we know: the one by Henry Seymour already mentioned, in 2010, and another in Geneva in 2019, also composite and bound in the 20th century. The title leaves of the first two volumes are faded. The last six volumes have been bound separately, shortly after the previous ones and on their model. Some scattered foxing and dampening, marginal tears and small angular tears to a few leaves, one corner broken in the binding of the first volume, scuffing to the spine of the third, repair to the bottom of pp. 1-4 of the twelfth. Munro, 153-155 - Carteret, I, 236 - Clouzot, 99 - Talvart, n°70A - Vicaire, III, 365.