The pets of Alexandre Dumas provided the writer of romances with adventures of a less swashbuckling but equally as engrossing a nature as ever befell his fictional Count. Residing at his Chateau, Monte Cristo, Dumas has acquired a heterogeneous menagerie of pets, which continually amuse and perplex their watchful master. With the help of his devoted servant Michel, a man lavishly endowed with Gallic independence of mind, Dumas seeks to create an almost impossible balance between the happiness of his pets, the good will of his neighbors, and the order of his household. Written in a leisurely style, full of personal ibes at literary figures and remarks about his own attitudes toward his work and his countrymen, he creates of his menagerie a microcosm. There is a deceitful cat, a sad case of adultery in the monkey case, a marauding Scottish pointer, a dog, ill-suited for the economical topography of France, all thoroughly enjoyed by Dumas as animals and appreciated by him as reflections of his equally capricious companions among men. A triple delight, this work, gracefully translated by A. Craig Bell, appeals to animal fanciers, students of literature, and readers with a taste for urbane self-revelation.