The story was originally written in French and later translated to different languages.
The events of the story take place in France, Italy and islands in the Mediterranean. The historical setting, which was concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, was the background for this adventure story. Edmond Dantes is the main character of the story who was a sailor. For his good fortunes he had, few of his close friends were jealous at him and falsely accused him for a not done act. The novel has been written on his imprisonment, how a dying fellow prisoner bequeathed him a treasure, how he took the possession of it and how he plotting his successful revenge against his former friends.
Some believe that Dumas got the idea for The Count of Monte Cristo from the records gathered by a French police archivist, on a similar incident. However, no proof is formally available for this belief. On the other hand there are number of related novels in different languages and feature films, based on this popular work done by Dumas.