Alexander Dumas's Novel, The Count of Monte Cristo Was Originally Published With Its Title MISSPELLED.
The editions published in this time period, and most of those released through the 1850s, bore the kind of spelling error that keeps copy editors awake at night. These early copies of the book were published as The Count of Monte Christo. It was 1846 before the first correction of this flaw was made, and only in 1860 did the circulation of correctly spelled copies outstrip the erroneous ones.
English writer and historian George Saintsbury, born just after the initial publication of the novel, estimated in an 1878 issue of The Fortnightly Review that The Count of Monte Cristowas, “at its first appearance, and for some time subsequently, the most popular book in Europe. Perhaps no novel within a given number of years had so many readers and penetrated into so many countries.” Granted, Saintsbury went on to malign said popularity, decreeing that only the first volume of the story, if any fraction, ever truly deserved such praise.
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