Forgotten Dumas novel surfaces in Paris

PARIS, June 6 (UPI) -- French author Alexandre Dumas has been dead for 135 years, but his latest novel has just gone on sale in Paris.

The prolific writer penned some 200 books in his lifetime, including "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers," and somehow the latest one was overlooked after his death, The Independent reported Monday.

"Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine" is the story of an aristocrat opposed to the French revolution and fascinated with the emperor, Napoleon. It was rediscovered by a Dumas scholar, Claude Schopp, 10 years ago.

As with several other Dumas works, the story had been printed in installments in the Moniteur Universel newspaper in 1869, but never published as a book.

In the introduction, Schopp wrote: "It should not be a surprise if scholars sometimes find something which they were not looking for. They often search for things and find nothing."