The Three Musketeers - Softcover

Dumas, Alexandre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141028033 ISBN 13: 9780141028033

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2007

Synopsis

D'Artagnan, arriving in Paris from Gascony with no horse and few worldly goods wishes to join the King's Guards. He finds himself in the company of three musketeers, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the most renowned fighters of their day. The adventures they share, fighting for the honour of the Queen against the machinations of 'Milady', are rich in drama, colour and romance, which is why The Three Musketeers has remained so popular since its first serialisation in 1844.

About this title

Review:

This swashbuckling classic is set in Louis XIII's France at the same time as Descartes' wanderings took him in 1627 to La Rochelle, whose Huguenot occupants were being besieged by Cardinal Richelieu. Dumas's cardinal, one of the book's many real-life characters, is simultaneously laying devilish plans to be rid of d'Artagnan and his fellow musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis. I'd forgotten how complex the plot is, how relentless the action (you can't cut to the chase the whole thing is one long desperate chase on horseback, in postillions, aboard ships) and how outrageous the characters. There's no grey in Dumas's novels, especially where women are concerned. The goodies, such as saintly Constance Bonacieux with whom our brave, penniless, honourable, hot-headed young hero from Gascony, d'Artagnan, is in love are purest snowy white. The baddies, represented by beautiful, treacherous Milady de Winter, once bigamously married to Athos and now working as a spy for Richelieu, make Madame Defarge look as dangerous as Miss Muffet. --Sue Arnold, The Guardian

Book Description:

An abridged edition of Alexandre Dumas's flamboyant tale of action and adventure in seventeenth-century France.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0141028033
• ISBN 13: 9780141028033
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 688