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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a gathering near Paris turns its talk toward the dead?
In The Thousand and One Ghosts, Alexandre Dumas steps into his own collection as a curious, sociable traveler. Near Paris, he meets people ready to share stories of hauntings, crimes, and signs from beyond the grave. Each guest brings a different tale, and the gathering becomes the thread that holds them together.
The stories move through different places, periods, and moods, with France’s violent past close behind them. The shadow of the French Revolution falls across a world familiar with sudden death. Yet Dumas tells these dark tales with warmth, jokes, and digressions, drawing you into the conversation rather than following one tight plot.
What you’ll discover
- A storyteller steps inside Meet Dumas as a character, drawn from the road into talk of crime and ghosts.
- Each guest brings ghosts Follow the gathering from teller to teller, each with a different encounter with the dead.
- France’s haunting past Feel the shadow of the French Revolution fall across stories marked by sudden death.
- Dark tales, warm company Enjoy a chatty storyteller whose jokes and digressions sit alongside the promise of a scare.
- Stories within a story Explore a loose chain of supernatural tales held together by the people who tell them.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy tales told around a table, haunted houses, French history seen from inside, and a narrator who argues with a sceptic while the candles burn low.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- An ordinary morning opens onto horror
- The guests bring different beliefs
- The blade may not end feeling
- Love grows beside hidden experiments
- Visions meet the memory of tombs
- Faith offers mercy and mystery
- Two brothers turn love into danger
- Doubt remains beside the ghosts
- One evening holds the stories together
Who’s who
- Alexandre DumasThe author, here a hunter and playwright, who witnesses a murderer's confession in a village and stays to hear the tales.
- Mr. LedruThe mayor of Fontenay-aux-Roses, a scholar and collector of royal relics, who believes the dead may still speak.
- Dr. RobertA loud and sceptical doctor who explains every wonder as a trick of the nerves.
- AllietteAn aged cartomancer, called Etteilla, who claims to have lived for centuries and to know the secret of long life.
- Abbé MoulleA gentle society priest who believes in guardian angels and demons and who once faced a bandit alone in a church.
- Chevalier LenoirA museum founder who mourns the scattered monuments of France and tells of the desecration of the royal tombs.
- JacqueminA quarryman who gives himself up for killing his wife and begs not to be taken back to the cellar.
- HedwigeThe pale woman in black, a Polish noblewoman who fled war to the Carpathians and is caught between two brothers.
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The Thousand and One Ghosts
by Alexandre Dumas · 1849
A quarryman runs bloody-handed to the mayor of Fontenay-aux-Roses and swears the head he cut off spoke.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Reason is a fool, my dear Doctor.”
In short
Can a head speak after it has been cut from the body? On a September day in 1831, Alexandre Dumas leaves a poor hunt near Paris when a quarryman runs past him with bloody hands and a wild stare.
The Thousand and One Ghosts at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 35 min2 h 50 min fast, 4 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 51,600 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1849by Alexandre Dumas
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A hunting trip leads to a confession
Dumas opens with a letter to a friend. He says the times are dark, and he would rather seek stories in the imaginary world than in the quarrels of politics. He feels like a ghost himself, walking forward with his head turned back.
Then comes the first of September, 1831. Dumas goes to open the hunting season at Fontenay-aux-Roses, a village of rose bushes south of Paris. The hunt is poor, and by noon he slips away, tired of walking. In a sunken lane a stranger runs toward him, pale, his hair on end, his hands red with blood.
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Details
- First published
- 1849
- Language
- English
- Level
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Cite this edition
Dumas, Alexandre. The Thousand and One Ghosts. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thousand-and-one-ghosts.
Dumas, A. (2026). The thousand and one ghosts. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thousand-and-one-ghosts (Original work published 1849)
Dumas, Alexandre. The Thousand and One Ghosts. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thousand-and-one-ghosts.
@book{dumas2026thousand,
author = {Dumas, Alexandre},
title = {The Thousand and One Ghosts},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-thousand-and-one-ghosts},
note = {First published 1849}
}
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What is The Thousand and One Ghosts about?
It is a set of ghost and supernatural tales told by guests at a Thursday dinner in Fontenay-aux-Roses, after the narrator, Dumas, witnesses a murderer's confession. Each guest offers a story about the dead, from the guillotine to a vampire.
Who tells the stories in The Thousand and One Ghosts?
Dumas himself sits at the table as a guest. The tales are told by the mayor Mr. Ledru, a doctor, the cartomancer Alliette, Abbé Moulle, Chevalier Lenoir and a pale Polish lady named Hedwige.
Is The Thousand and One Ghosts a true story?
It is fiction, though Dumas sets it in a real village and uses real history, such as the French Revolution, the opening of the royal tombs at Saint-Denis and real people like Danton and Marie-Antoinette.
The author
Alexandre Dumas
1802–1870 · French novelist and playwright
Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) was a French novelist and playwright. He was born in Villers-Cotterêts, lived in Paris, and died in Puys, near Dieppe. He wrote The Three Musketeers (1844), The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–1846), Twenty Years After (1845), and The Black Tulip (1850).
“Reason is a fool, my dear Doctor.”
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