The Three Musketeers

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Qualitas Publishing, 2012 - Fiction - 610 pages
The Three Musketeers is a novel by the French writer, Alexandre Dumas, first published in serial form in 1844. Set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a guard of the Musketeers (a "musketeer" was a type of infantry soldier equipped with a musket). The poor d'Artagnan travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. He suffers misadventure and is challenged to a duel by each of three musketeers (Athos, Aramis and Porthos). Attacked by the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and escape. They become inseparable friends who live by the motto "all for one, one for all." The novel recounts their adventures as they become embroiled in various intrigues with the royalty of the day, including the French Queen, King Louis XIII, the Duke of Buckingham as well as other memorable characters, including Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter. The novel has earned a place in literary history and been adapted to stage and film. This publication of The Three Musketeers is part of the Qualitas Classics Fireside Series, where pure, ageless classics are presented in clean, easy to read reprints. For a complete list of titles, see: http: //www.qualitaspublishing.com

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About the author (2012)

After an idle youth, Alexandre Dumas went to Paris and spent some years writing. A volume of short stories and some farces were his only productions until 1927, when his play Henri III (1829) became a success and made him famous. It was as a storyteller rather than a playwright, however, that Dumas gained enduring success. Perhaps the most broadly popular of French romantic novelists, Dumas published some 1,200 volumes during his lifetime. These were not all written by him, however, but were the works of a body of collaborators known as "Dumas & Co." Some of his best works were plagiarized. For example, The Three Musketeers (1844) was taken from the Memoirs of Artagnan by an eighteenth-century writer, and The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) from Penchet's A Diamond and a Vengeance. At the end of his life, drained of money and sapped by his work, Dumas left Paris and went to live at his son's villa, where he remained until his death.

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