Abstract: Alexandre Dumas, described by a French literary critic of his time, as "Negro by origin and French by birth", "true Proteus, escaping everyone and himself", has always posed a problem for theorists of race. The man poses a problem, but the resonance of his work is global. This article examines the case of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, whose adaptations between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th century contributed to the rise of Hollywood cinema and to the phenomenal success of the actor O'Neill everywhere through the United States, without the question of the writer's race having been asked once.
