The Dante Club
by Matthew Pearl
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl holds a mixed reviews rating of 3.38 out of 5, based on 31K reader ratings. First published in 2003. The book spans 424 pages.
About The Dante Club
A magnificent blend of fact and fiction, a brilliantly realized paean to Dante's continued grip on our imagination, and a captivating thriller that will surprise readers from beginning to end.Words can bleed.In 1865 Boston, the literary geniuses of the Dante Club—poets and Harvard professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields—are finishing America's first translation of The Divine Comedy and preparing to unveil Dante's remarkable visions to the New World. The powerful Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in obscurity, believing that the infiltration of foreign superstitions into American minds will prove as corrupting as the immigrants arriving at Boston Harbor.The members of the Dante Club fight to keep a sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the lives of the Boston elite and Dante's literary future in America at stake, the Dante Club members must find the killer before the authorities discover their secret.Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and an outcast police officer named Nicholas Rey, the first black member of the Boston police department, must place their careers on the line to end the terror. Together, they discover that the source of the murders lies closer to home than they ever could have imagined.The Dante Club is a magnificent blend of fact and fiction, a brilliantly realized paean to Dante's continued grip on our imagination, and a captivating thriller that will surprise readers from beginning to end.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Author | Matthew Pearl |
| Published | 2003 |
| Pages | 424 |
| Genres | Mystery & Thriller, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thriller, Mystery & Thriller |
| Average Rating | 3.38 / 5.00 |
| Total Ratings | 31,035 |
Reader Ratings & Analysis
Rating Overview
How It Compares
Frequently Asked Questions
What genre is The Dante Club?
The Dante Club is categorized as Mystery & Thriller, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thriller. Its primary genre classification is Mystery & Thriller.
Is The Dante Club worth reading?
Based on 31K reader ratings, The Dante Club has an average score of 3.38 out of 5.00, which is considered "Mixed Reviews."
How many pages is The Dante Club?
The Dante Club has 424 pages.
Who wrote The Dante Club?
The Dante Club was written by Matthew Pearl. It was first published in 2003.
What is the ISBN for The Dante Club?
The ISBN-13 for The Dante Club is 9780345490380.0.
Data sourced from community book ratings and reviews. Last updated: April 15, 2026
