The Three Musketeers

Front Cover
Wordsworth Editions, 1993 - Fiction - 627 pages

With an Introduction and Notes by Keith Wren. University of Kent at Canterbury.

One of the most celebrated and popular historical romances ever written, The Three Musketeers tells the story of the early adventures of the young Gascon gentleman, D'Artagnan and his three friends from the regiment of the King's Musketeers - Athos, Porthos and Aramis.

Under the watchful eye of their patron M. de Treville, the four defend the honour of the regiment against the guards of Cardinal Richelieu, and the honour of the queen against the machinations of the Cardinal himself as the power struggles of seventeenth century France are vividly played out in the background.

But their most dangerous encounter is with the Cardinal's spy, Milady, one of literature's most memorable female villains, and Alexandre Dumas employs all his fast-paced narrative skills to bring this enthralling novel to a breathtakingly gripping and dramatic conclusion.

Our edition uses the William Barrow translation first published by Bruce and Wylde (London,1846)

 

Contents

The Three Presents of M dArtagnan the Father
5
2
17
3
25
4
34
5
41
6
50
7
66
8
72
A Terrible Vision
343
The Siege of La Rochelle
349
The Wine of Anjou
359
The Red Dovecot Tavern
366
The Utility of Stove Funnels
373
A Conjugal Scene
380
The Bastion of St Gervais
385
The Council of the Musketeers
390

9
79
The Bonancieux Household
147
The Lover and the Husband
158
The Plan of Campaign
164
The Journey
171
The Countess de Winter
181
The Ballet of The Merlaison
189
The Appointment
195
The Pavilion
204
Porthos
212
The Thesis of Aramis
228
The Wife of Athos
241
The Return
257
The Hunt after Equipments
269
My Lady
276
English and French
282
An Attorneys Dinner
288
Maid and Mistress
295
Concerning the Equipments of Aramis and Porthos
303
All Cats are alike Grey in the Dark
310
The Dream of Vengeance
316
The Ladys Secret
322
How without disturbing himself Athos obtained his Equipment
328
A Charming Vision
335
A Family Affair
405
Fatality
417
A Chat between a Brother and Sister
424
The Officer
430
The First Day of Imprisonment
439
The Second Day of Imprisonment
445
The Third Day of Imprisonment
452
The Fourth Day of Imprisonment
459
The Fifth Day of Imprisonment
466
An Event in Classical Tragedy
478
The Escape
483
What Happened at Portsmouth on the Twentythird of August 1628
491
In France
500
The Carmelite Convent of Bethune
504
Two Kinds of Demons
516
A Drop of Water
520
The Man in the Red Cloak
532
The Judgment
536
The Execution
543
A Message from The Cardinal
546
The Epilogue
554
NOTES
557
Copyright

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About the author (1993)

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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