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Les Trois Mousquetaires book cover 1
Les Trois Mousquetaires book cover 2
Les Trois Mousquetaires book cover 3
Les Trois Mousquetaires
Series · 4 books · 1844-1845

Books in series

The Three Musketeers book cover
#1

The Three Musketeers

1844

The novel follows the adventures of an 18-year-old penniless Gascon, d'Artagnan, who comes to Paris to pursue a career in the Musketeers. He befriends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, musketeers serving King Louis XIII. These four men will oppose the Prime Minister, Cardinal Richelieu, and his agents, including the Count of Rochefort and the beautiful and mysterious Milady de Winter, in order to save the honor of the Queen of France, Anne of Austria. With its numerous sword fights and dramatic twists, The Three Musketeers is the quintessential swashbuckling novel, and its success was so great that Dumas himself adapted it for the theater and brought back the four heroes in the rest of the trilogy.
Los tres mosqueteros, 2 book cover
#2

Los tres mosqueteros, 2

1844

In March 1844 the French magazine Le Siecle, printed the first installment of a story by Alexandre Dumas. It was based, Dumas claimed, on some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history he planned to write on Louis XIV. The serial chronicled the adventures of D'Artagnan—a young swordsman intent on joining the king's musketeers. Young D'Artagnan becomes embroiled in court intrigues, international politics, and ill-fated affairs between royal lovers. This volume of the serial—The Three Musketeers is set in the year 1625. The D'Artagnan arrives in Paris at the tender age of 18, and that very day gives offese to three musketeers—Porthos, Aramis, and Athos. Duels are agreed—but interrupted by five of the Cardinal's guards. Instead of dueling, the four are attacked. D'Artagnan acquits himself impressively: his youthful courage becomes apparent during the battle. The four become friends, and, when asked by D'Artagnan's landlord to find his missing wife, embark upon an adventure that takes them across both France and England in order to thwart the plans of the Cardinal Richelieu. Along the way, they encounter a beautiful young spy, whom they know at first only as Milady, who will stop at nothing to disgrace Queen Anne of Austria before her husband, Louis XIII, and take revenge upon the musketeers. (Volume II of II.)
Vingt ans après, 1 book cover
#3

Vingt ans après, 1

1845

This sequel to "The Three Musketeers" and follows events in France during La Fronde, during the childhood reign of Louis XIV, and in England near the end of the English Civil War, leading up to the victory of Oliver Cromwell and the execution of King Charles I.
Vingt ans après, tome 2 book cover
#4

Vingt ans après, tome 2

1845

Two decades have passed since the famous swordsmen triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady in The Three Musketeers. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England, Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is the titanic struggle with the son of Milady who wears the face of evil. Book Excerpt In a splendid chamber of the Palais Royal, formerly styled the Palais Cardinal, a man was sitting in deep reverie, his head supported on his hands, leaning over a gilt and inlaid table which was covered with letters and papers. Behind this figure glowed a vast fireplace alive with leaping flames; great logs of oak blazed and crackled on the polished brass andirons whose flicker shone upon the superb habiliments of the lonely tenant of the room, which was illumined grandly by twin candelabra rich with wax–lights. Any one who happened at that moment to contemplate that red simar—the gorgeous robe of office—and the rich lace, or who gazed on that pale brow, bent in anxious meditation, might, in the solitude of that apartment, combined with the silence of the ante–chambers and the measured paces of the guards upon the landing–place, have fancied that the shade of Cardinal Richelieu lingered still in his accustomed haunt. It was, alas! the ghost of former greatness. France enfeebled, the authority of her sovereign contemned, her nobles returning to their former turbulence and insolence, her enemies within her frontiers—all proved the great Richelieu no longer in existence.

Author

Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas
Author · 172 books

This note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils. Alexandre Dumas, père (French for "father", akin to Senior in English), born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were serialized. Dumas also wrote plays and magazine articles, and was a prolific correspondent. Dumas was of Haitian descent and mixed-race. His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, a black slave. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career. Dumas' father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre Dumas acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, finding early success. He became one of the leading authors of the French Romantic Movement, in Paris. Excerpted from Wikipedia.

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