The Three Musketeers (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Dumas, Alexandre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853260401 ISBN 13: 9781853260407

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1992

Synopsis

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)

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: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 1853260401
• ISBN 13: 9781853260407
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592