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The Three Musketeers (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback) (Paperback)
by Alexandre Dumas père, Alan Furst, Jacques Le Clercq (Translator)
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MSL Pointer Review:
Daring deeds and cold steel combine in this classic which has thrilled readers for over one hundred and fifty years.
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Author: Alexandre Dumas père, Alan Furst, Jacques Le Clercq (Translator)
Publisher: Modern Library
Pub. in: February, 2001
ISBN: 0375756744
Pages: 640
Measurements: 8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00665
Other information: Modern Library edition
ISBN-13: 978-0375756740
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- MSL Picks -
There is a reason Alexandre Dumas' classic is still read and reread today. It is just plain fun to read, supposing you are not forced to do so for some sort of literature class. Gallant heroes, fair damsels, magnificent settings, war, love, duels, honorable gentlemen, nefarious villains, kings, queens, princes, French, English and Cardinal Richelieu, this book has everything.
Based mostly around the character of D'Artagnan, a young man trying to enter the Musketeers, the personal bodyguard of the King of France. Befitting a King, his bodyguard contingent is very large, but D'Artagnan befriends three of the company: Athos, Porthos and Aramis, in addition to their captain. Befitting the central character, this book is written with the exuberance of youth in such intoxicating measure that the reader cannot help but feel genuine affection for the loyal, heroic, though occasionally hotheaded D'Artagnan and his well-matched friends.
The book slows down near the end for some rather unexciting, though very important, character development which itself leads to a vital development in the story. However, despite the fact the plot does tend to drag a bit in this section, it is, indeed, very important and, more importantly, the slowdown in that portion allows the frightful pace of the next few chapters to feel that much more urgent.
All in all, this book is just a rollicking good time. For people who want to read a well written book with an intense plot, characters for whom one can feel genuine affection and a vivid sense of setting: this is a book that belongs in one's personal library.
Target readers:
General readers
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Alexandre Dumas, who lived a life as dramatic as any depicted in his more than three hundred volumes of plays, novels, travel books, and memoirs, was born on July 24, 1802, in the town of Villers-Cotterêts, some fifty miles from Paris. He was the third child of Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie (who took the name of Dumas), a nobleman who distinguished himself as one of Napoleon's most brilliant generals, and Marie-Louise-Elisabeth Labouret. Following General Dumas's death in 1806 the family faced precarious financial circumstances, yet Mme. Dumas scrimped to pay for her son's private schooling. Unfortunately he proved an indifferent student who excelled in but one subject: penmanship. In 1816, at the age of fourteen, Dumas found employment as a clerk with a local notary to help support the family. A growing interest in theater brought him to Paris in 1822, where he met François-Joseph Talma, the great French tragedian, and resolved to become a playwright. Meanwhile the passionate Dumas fell in love with Catherine Labay, a seamstress by whom he had a son. (Though he had numerous mistresses in his lifetime Dumas married only once, but the union did not last.) While working as a scribe for the duc d'Orléans (later King Louis-Philippe) Dumas collaborated on a one-act vaudeville, La Chasse et l'amour ( The Chase and Love, 1825). But it was not until 1827, after attending a British performance of Hamlet, that Dumas discovered a direction for his dramas. 'For the first time in the theater I was seeing true passions motivating men and women of flesh and blood,' he recalled. 'From this time on, but only then, did I have an idea of what the theater could be.'
Dumas achieved instant fame on February 11, 1829, with the triumphant opening of Henri III et sa cour (Henry III and His Court). An innovative and influential play generally regarded as the first French drama of the Romantic movement, it broke with the staid precepts of Neoclassicism that had been imposed on the Paris stage for more than a century. Briefly involved as a republican partisan in the July Revolution of 1830, Dumas soon resumed playwriting and over the next decade turned out a number of historical melodramas that electrified audiences. Two of these works-Antony (1831) and La Tour de Nesle (The Tower of Nesle, 1832)-stand out as milestones in the history of nineteenth-century French theater. In disfavor with the new monarch, Louis-Philippe, because of his republican sympathies, Dumas left France for a time. In 1832 he set out on a tour of Switzerland, chronicling his adventures in Impressions de voyage: En Suisse ( Travels in Switzerland, 1834-1837); over the years he produced many travelogues about subsequent journeys through France, Italy, Russia, and other countries.
Around 1840 Dumas embarked upon a series of historical romances inspired by both his love of French history and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. In collaboration with Auguste Maquet, he serialized Le Chevalier d'Harmental in the newspaper Le Siècle in 1842. Part history, intrigue, adventure, and romance, it is widely regarded as the first of Dumas's great novels. The two subsequently worked together on a steady stream of books, most of which were published serially in Parisian tabloids and eagerly read by the public. He is best known for the celebrated d'Artagnan trilogy-Les trois mousquetaires ( The Three Musketeers, 1844), Vingt ans après (Twenty Years After, 1845) and Dix ans plus tarde ou le Vicomte de Bragelonne ( Ten Years Later; or The Viscount of Bragelonne, 1848-1850)-and the so-called Valois romances-La Reine Margot (Queen Margot, 1845), La Dame de Monsoreau ( The Lady of Monsoreau, 1846), and Les Quarante-cinc ( The Forty-Five Guardsmen, 1848). Yet perhaps his greatest success was Le Comte de Monte Cristo ( The Count of Monte Cristo), which appeared in installments in Le Journal des debats from 1844 to 1845. A final tetralogy marked the end of their partnership: Mmoires d'un medecin: Joseph Balsamo ( Memoirs of a Physician, 1846-1848), Le Collier de la reine ( The Queen's Necklace, 1849-1850), Ange Pitou ( Taking the Bastille, 1853), and La Comtesse de Charny ( The Countess de Charny, 1852-1855).
In 1847, at the height of his fame, Dumas assumed the role of impresario. Hoping to reap huge profits, he inaugurated the new Theatre Historique as a vehicle for staging dramatizations of his historical novels. The same year he completed construction of a lavish residence in the quiet hamlet of Marly-le-Roi. Called Le Château de Monte Cristo, it was home to a menagerie of exotic pets and a parade of freeloaders until 1850, when Dumas's theater failed and he faced bankruptcy. Fleeing temporarily to Belgium in order to avoid creditors, Dumas returned to Paris in 1853, shortly after the appearance of the initial volumes of Mes Memoires ( My Memoirs, 1852). Over the next years he founded the newspaper Le Mousquetaire, for which he wrote much of the copy, as well as the literary weekly Le Monte Cristo, but his finances never recovered. In 1858 he traveled to Russia, eventually publishing two new episodes of Impressions de voyage: Le Caucase (Adventures in the Caucasus, 1859) and En Russie (Travels in Russia, 1865).
The final decade of Dumas's life began with customary high adventure. In 1860 he met Garibaldi and was swept up into the cause of Italian independence. After four years in Naples publishing the bilingual paper L'Independant/L'Indipendente, Dumas returned to Paris in 1864. In 1867 he began a flamboyant liaison with Ada Menken, a young American actress who dubbed him 'the king of romance.' The same year marked the appearance of a last novel, La Terreur Prussiene (The Prussian Terror). Dumas's final play, Les Blancs et les Bleus (The Whites and the Blues), opened in Paris in 1869.
Alexandre Dumas died penniless but cheerful on December 5, 1870, saying of death: 'I shall tell her a story, and she will be kind to me.' One hundred years later his biographer Andre Maurois paid him this tribute: 'Dumas was a hero out of Dumas. As strong as Porthos, as adroit as d'Artagnan, as generous as Edmond Dantes, this superb giant strode across the nineteenth century breaking down doors with his shoulder, sweeping women away in his arms, and earning fortunes only to squander them promptly in dissipation. For forty years he filled the newspapers with his prose, the stage with his dramas, the world with his clamor. Never did he know a moment of doubt or an instant of despair. He turned his own existence into the finest of his novels.'
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First published in 1844, Alexandre Dumas's swashbuckling epic chronicles the adventures of D'Artagnan, a gallant young nobleman who journeys to Paris in 1625 hoping to join the ranks of musketeers guarding Louis XIII. He soon finds himself fighting alongside three heroic comrades-Athos, Porthos, and Aramis-who seek to uphold the honor of the king by foiling the wicked plots of Cardinal Richelieu and the beautiful spy "Milady." As Clifton Fadiman reflected, "We read The Three Musketeers to experience a sense of romance and for the sheer excitement of the story. In these violent pages all is action, intrigue, suspense, surprise-an almost endless chain of duels, murders, love affairs, unmaskings, ambushes, hairbreadth escapes, wild rides. It is all impossible and it is all magnificent."
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The Three Presents Of D'Artagnan The Elder
On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it. Many citizens, seeing the women flying toward the High Street, leaving their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the cuirass, and supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with a musket or a partisan, directed their steps toward the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was gathered, increasing every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of curiosity.
In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city or other registering in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. Then, in addition to these concealed or public, secret or open wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The citizens always took up arms readily against thieves, wolves or scoundrels, often against nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against cardinal or Spain. It resulted, then, from this habit that on the said first Monday of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamor, and seeing neither the red-and-yellow standard nor the livery of the Duc de Richelieu, rushed toward the hostel of the Jolly Miller. When arrived there, the cause of the hubbub was apparent to all.
A young man-we can sketch his portrait at a dash. Imagine to yourself a Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his corselet, without his coat of mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a woolen doublet, the blue color of which had faded into a nameless shade between lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown; high cheek bones, a sign of sagacity; the maxillary muscles enormously developed, an infallible sign by which a Gascon may always be detected, even without his cap-and our young man wore a cap set off with a sort of feather; the eye open and intelligent; the nose hooked, but finely chiseled. Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, an experienced eye might have taken him for a farmer's son upon a journey had it not been for the long sword which, dangling from a leather baldric, hit against the calves of its owner as he walked, and against the rough side of his steed when he was on horseback.
For our young man had a steed which was the observed of all observers. It was a Béarn pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, yellow in his hide, without a hair in his tail, but not without windgalls on his legs, which, though going with his head lower than his knees, rendering a martingale quite unnecessary, contrived nevertheless to perform his eight leagues a day. Unfortunately, the qualities of this horse were so well concealed under his strange-colored hide and his unaccountable gait, that at a time when everybody was a connoisseur in horseflesh, the appearance of the aforesaid pony at Meung-which place he had entered about a quarter of an hour before, by the gate of Beaugency-produced an unfavorable feeling, which extended to his rider.
And this feeling had been more painfully perceived by young D'Artagnan-for so was the Don Quixote of this second Rosinante named--from his not being able to conceal from himself the ridiculous appearance that such a steed gave him, good horseman as he was. He had sighed deeply, therefore, when accepting the gift of the pony from M. D'Artagnan the elder. He was not ignorant that such a beast was worth at least twenty livres; and the words which had accompanied the present were above all price.
"My son," said the old Gascon gentleman, in that pure Béarn patois of which Henry IV could never rid himself, "this horse was born in the house of your father about thirteen years ago, and has remained in it ever since, which ought to make you love it. Never sell it; allow it to die tranquilly and honorably of old age, and if you make a campaign with it, take as much care of it as you would of an old servant. At court, provided you have ever the honor to go there," continued M. D'Artagnan the elder, "-an honor to which, remember, your ancient nobility gives you the right-sustain worthily your name of gentleman, which has been worthily borne by your ancestors for five hundred years, both for your own sake and the sake of those who belong to you. By the latter I mean your relatives and friends. Endure nothing from anyone except Monsieur the Cardinal and the king. It is by his courage, please observe, by his courage alone, that a gentleman can make his way nowadays. Whoever hesitates for a second perhaps allows the bait to escape which during that exact second fortune held out to him. You are young. You ought to be brave for two reasons: the first is that you are a Gascon, and the second is that you are my son. Never fear quarrels, but seek adventures. I have taught you how to handle a sword; you have thews of iron, a wrist of steel. Fight on all occasions. Fight the more for duels being forbidden, since consequently there is twice as much courage in fighting. I have nothing to give you, my son, but fifteen crowns, my horse, and the counsels you have just heard. Your mother will add to them a recipe for a certain balsam, which she had from a Bohemian and which has the miraculous virtue of curing all wounds that do not reach the heart. Take advantage of all, and live happily and long. I have but one word to add, and that is to propose an example to you- not mine, for I myself have never appeared at court, and have only taken part in religious wars as a volunteer; I speak of Monsieur de Tréville, who was formerly my neighbor, and who had the honor to be, as a child, the play-fellow of our king, Louis XIII, whom God preserve! Sometimes their play degenerated into battles, and in these battles the king was not always the stronger. The blows which he received increased greatly his esteem and friendship for Monsieur de Tréville. Afterward, Monsieur de Tréville fought with others: in his first journey to Paris, five times; from the death of the late king till the young one came of age, without reckoning wars and sieges, seven times; and from that date up to the present day, a hundred times, perhaps! So that in spite of edicts, ordinances, and decrees, there he is, captain of the Musketeers; that is to say, chief of a legion of Caesars, whom the king holds in great esteem and whom the cardinal dreads-he who dreads nothing, as it is said. Still further, Monsieur de Tréville gains ten thousand crowns a year; he is therefore a great noble. He began as you begin. Go to him with this letter, and make him your model in order that you may do as he has done."
Upon which M. D'Artagnan the elder girded his own sword round his son, kissed him tenderly on both cheeks, and gave him his benediction.
On leaving the paternal chamber, the young man found his mother, who was waiting for him with the famous recipe of which the counsels we have just repeated would necessitate frequent employment. The adieux were on this side longer and more tender than they had been on the other-not that M. D'Artagnan did not love his son, who was his only offspring, but M. D'Artagnan was a man, and he would have considered it unworthy of a man to give way to his feelings; whereas Mme. D'Artagnan was a woman, and still more, a mother. She wept abundantly; and-let us speak it to the praise of M. D'Artagnan the younger-notwithstanding the efforts he made to remain firm, as a future Musketeer ought, nature prevailed, and he shed many tears, of which he succeeded with great difficulty in concealing the half.
The same day the young man set forward on his journey, furnished with the three paternal gifts, which consisted, as we have said, of fifteen crowns, the horse, and the letter for M. de Tréville-the counsels being thrown into the bargain.
With such a vade mecum D'Artagnan was morally and physically an exact copy of the hero of Cervantes, to whom we so happily compared him when our duty of an historian placed us under the necessity of sketching his portrait. Don Quixote took windmills for giants, and sheep for armies; D'Artagnan took every smile for an insult, and every look as a provocation-whence it resulted that from Tarbes to Meung his fist was constantly doubled, or his hand on the hilt of his sword; and yet the fist did not descend upon any jaw, nor did the sword issue from its scabbard. It was not that the sight of the wretched pony did not excite numerous smiles on the countenances of passers-by; but as against the side of this pony rattled a sword of respectable length, and as over this sword gleamed an eye rather ferocious than haughty, these passers-by repressed their hilarity, or if hilarity prevailed over prudence, they endeavored to laugh only on one side, like the masks of the ancients. D'Artagnan, then, remained majestic and intact in his susceptibility, till he came to this unlucky city of Meung.
But there, as he was alighting from his horse at the gate of the Jolly Miller, without anyone-host, waiter, or hostler-coming to hold his stirrup or take his horse, D'Artagnan spied, though an open window on the ground floor, a gentleman, well-made and of good carriage, although of rather a stern countenance, talking with two persons who appeared to listen to him with respect. D'Artagnan fancied quite naturally, according to his custom, that he must be the object of their conversation, and listened. This time D'Artagnan was only in part mistaken; he himself was not in question, but his horse was. The gentleman appeared to be enumerating all his qualities to his auditors; and, as I have said, the auditors seeming to have great deference for the narrator, they every moment burst into fits of laughter. Now, as a half-smile was sufficient to awaken the irascibility of the young man, the effect produced upon him by this vociferous mirth may be easily imagined.
Nevertheless, D'Artagnan was desirous of examining the appearance of this impertinent personage who ridiculed him. He fixed his haughty eye upon the stranger, and perceived a man of from forty to forty-five years of age, with black and piercing eyes, pale complexion, a strongly marked nose, and a black and well-shaped mustache. He was dressed in a doublet and hose of a violet color, with aiguillettes of the same color, without any other ornaments than the customary slashes, through which the shirt appeared. This doublet and hose, though new, were creased, like traveling clothes for a long time packed in a portmanteau. D'Artagnan made all these remarks with the rapidity of a most minute observer, and doubtless from an instinctive feeling that this stranger was destined to have a great influence over his future life.
Now, as at the moment in which D'Artagnan fixed his eyes upon the gentleman in the violet doublet, the gentleman made one of his most knowing and profound remarks respecting the Béarnese pony, his two auditors laughed even louder than before, and he himself, though contrary to his custom, allowed a pale smile (if I may allowed to use such an expression) to stray over his countenance. This time there could be no doubt; D'Artagnan was really insulted. Full, then, of this conviction, he pulled his cap down over his eyes, and endeavoring to copy some of the court airs he had picked up in Gascony among young traveling nobles, he advanced with one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other resting on his hip. Unfortunately, as he advanced, his anger increased at every step; and instead of the proper and lofty speech he had prepared as a prelude to his challenge, he found nothing at the tip of his tongue but a gross personality, which he accompanied with a furious gesture.
"I say, sir, you sir, who are hiding yourself behind that shutter-yes, you, sir, tell me what you are laughing at, and we will laugh together!"
The gentleman raised his eyes slowly from the nag to his cavalier, as if he required some time to ascertain whether it could be to him that such strange reproaches were addressed; then, when he could not possibly entertain any doubt of the matter, his eyebrows slightly bent, and with an accent of irony and insolence impossible to be described, he replied to D'Artagnan, "I was not speaking to you, sir."
"But I am speaking to you!" replied the young man, additionally exasperated with this mixture of insolence and good manners, of politeness and scorn.
The stranger looked at him again with a slight smile, and retiring from the window, came out of the hostelry with a slow step, and placed himself before the horse, within two paces of D'Artagnan. His quiet manner and the ironical expression of his countenance redoubled the mirth of the persons with whom he had been talking, and who still remained at the window.
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Dennis Phillips (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-02 00:00>
For years schoolteachers have tried to get their pupils interested in reading by telling them they have to read this book. Of course this seldom works for there is a difference in reading for pleasure and reading because one is forced to do so. I must admit however that if this tact is ever going to work, it should work with this book. Dumas is the master of the adventure story and this just may be his best work. Sex, violence, intrigue, and one purely evil character are to be found in the pages of this book. What more could the modern reader ask for?
The story does not center on the actual three musketeers in question as the book might imply. Instead the young d'Artagnan is the hero of this story as the reader follows him in his successful quest to become one of the King's Musketeers. He soon becomes entangled in disputes with three musketeers who will become his best friends. Aramis, Athos and Porthos are an eclectic and eccentric group whose mere presence in a scene immediately adds color. D'Artagnan's adventures with his three friends have been immortalized on film many times, but do not be fooled. The films bear little resemblance to the book in many instances and seldom do they do Dumas' work justice. For one thing, the activities of our little group that would today be frowned upon seem never to make it to the big screen. For example, I have never seen a film version in which Porthos beats his lackey.
It is of course easy to review a classic like this and rave about how wonderful it is. Others who are no doubt much more intelligent than myself have indicated that this is one of the all time great books, so it must be so. In truth, I don't really care what others have said. What I care about is whether I enjoyed the book or not and I assure you that I did enjoy this book very much. Dumas' writing draws in his reader and it is often quite hard to put the story down in order to look after other important matters, like sleep. The reader will find no deep symbolism here, just good fun and a lot of it. Of course, just by accident the reader might just learn a little history but fear not for there will be no test.
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Tenebricosa (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-02 00:00>
This is one book that has definitely earned its place among tbe top novels of all time. The characters are lively and developed, each with his or her own individual personality and part of what makes this book so appealing is the complex relations between them, ones that evolve through the book to suit new relevations in plot and character.
I haven't watched any film based on this book as of yet so I cannot say with any large degree of truth in the statement that the book is better than the film but I have my doubts that any film can properly display all the subtle nuances and plot details inherent in this book.
Lastly I must address the historical context of this story. Louis XIII is not a commonly discussed historical figure in French history as he is certainly no Henry IV or Lous XIV but it must be told that to say Dumas embroidered on history is an understatement, though he disguises it cleverly and makes it almost believable as a true historical work.
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B. Morse (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-02 00:00>
In 'Musketeers' Alexandre Dumas set the stage for future works as he introduced readers to the exploits and adventures of D'Artagnan and his friends Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, a.k.a. The Three Musketeers. Subsequent books follow, telling further adventures 'Twenty Years Later' and 'Ten Years After' that. But in Musketeers, readers meet the young D'Artagnan and his trio of swashbuckling companions for the first time.
Trying to classify the story into one genre is an exercise in futility, as it encompasses so many. But to me, it is most of all a comedy. Many, many times I found myself chuckling while reading the foibles of French manners in the 17th century, as chronicled in the 19th century by Dumas. The Musketeers are warriors, spies, womanizers, drunkards; but above all they are gentlemen. Two men about to duel discuss a salve one offers the other to heal a prior wound; A lackey who is ordered not to speak is reprimanded for bringing news that will spare the Musketeers from harm and trying to deliver it to them; a duel is avoided as there is not sufficient time to fight it properly; and an innkeeper is maligned for not having better wines in his cellar while one of the Musketeers holes up there for days after not paying his bill.
While the action is well plotted, and the storyline twists and turns are plausible and palpable, the most intriguing, captivating, and charming aspect of this story for me was its humor. In a world full of formulaic, contrived 'adventure tales' it was a treat to step back in time several hundred years and find a real adventure story. Classics survive for a reason, while other stories are relegated to the bargain bins. While Dumas was not exactly thought of as 'high quality' literature, and his intelligence has been the subject of discourse and debate, he had a clever way with words, characters, and stories. His plot here is not at all overblown, and while his characters may be larger than life, their life isn't. Even as his 'over the top' anti-heroes cross blades again and again with the Cardinal Richelieu's forces, bed women time and again, fight off attack after attack, and escape certain death more than once, the world they live in never seems like a work of fiction.
In contrast to Count of Monte Cristo, this book is only 'lighter' in the manner in which the story is unfolded. While that book had a much darker theme, this story is every bit as engrossing. I am happy to have saved this book to savor in adulthood, and highly recommend reading the adventures of the Musketeers to anyone with a love for classics.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-02 00:00>
For those trying to read The Musketeers Saga:
In the original French, there are only three (3) books - 1. The Three Musketeers 2. Twenty Years After and 3. Ten Years Later. But when translated, most English editions split the behemoth Ten Years Later into a Trilogy (and some four - which make it all the more confusing!).
The reading list should be 1. The Three Musketeers 2. Twenty Years After and 3a. The Vicomte de Bragelonne 3b. Louise de la Valliere and 3c. The Man in the Iron Mask. Five books - that's the total series!
I highly recommend this series from Oxford University Press containing the complete unabridged and annotated versions of all of these books. The notes are located in the back of each book so as not to slow down the flow of the text. Most of the notes give additional info on historic characters and places. And a few point out that Dumas was a better storyteller than historian, as keeping dates seems to be such a nuisance!
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