Ladybird Mini The Three Musketeers

by Ladybird Books

D'Artagnan comes to Paris hoping to become a Musketeer and almost at once finds himself caught up in the high adventure of the royal court. With new-found friends, D'Artagnan risks his life in the service of the King and Queen.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Childrens

56 pages, Hardcover

First published January 29, 1981

About the author

Ladybird books are known and loved the world over. For millions of people, they bring back the golden days of childhood - learning to read, discovering the magic of books, and growing up.

The very first Ladybird book ever was produced by a jobbing printer called Wills & Hepworth during the First World War. The company, based in Loughborough, Leicestershire, began to publish 'pure and healthy literature' for children, registering the Ladybird logo in 1915. Despite the company's claims, however, those books would no longer be politically correct. In the ABC Picture Book, for example, A stood for armoured train!

Reviews

[Gerry]

I have always been a fan of Alexandre Dumas since a youngster so this Ladybird retelling of the three musketeers was a must.

Joan Cameron has done a very good job of retelling it in 52 pages without losing any feeling of the dramatic actions that d'Artagnan, Aramis, Porthos and Athos go through in their attempts to outwit Cardinal Richelieu and the seductive spy Milady who are trying to destroy the King Louis XIII.

That action all comes after d'Artagnan's attempt to become a musketeer when he meets, and ultimately befriends Aramis, Porthos and Athos as they fight a company of the Cardinal's guards. The foursome eventually sail to England to sort out a problem that had developed for the Duke of Buckingham and successfully return to France to enable the Queen to get the better of Richelieu.

Thereafter d'Artagnan, Aramis, Porthos and Athos were friends forever ... 'All for one and one for all!'

[Andrew Ives]

(1995 edition with purple cover/spine) Abridging a 626 page classic French tome into barely 50 pages of Ladybird must've taken some doing. Joan Cameron has done this very well indeed and the accompanying watercolour illustrations are rather brilliant, especially the cover one, albeit less frequent than is usual with Ladybird books. Obviously, the story has had to be simplified somewhat and a lot of the French-ness is missing, but even so, I think this would be very enjoyable to proficient readers around the age of 10yrs who aren't already familiar with the films/series. 5/5

[Jo Beale]

1981

[Ronnie Dooley]

I had high hopes for this one seeing that Count of Monte Cristo is one of my all time favorite books and was written by the same author, Alexandre Dumas. However, this one seemed to fall short for me.

I had a hard time keeping interest in it even while reading it. At times I would catch myself reading several paragraphs and suddenly not remember what was happening in the story and have to go back and re-read it. The author spent more time describing emotions or thoughts rather than writing scenes. There could be a whole paragraph describing the reasoning behind a characters action meanwhile the scene itself would play out in a single sentence.

I struggled through this one but will still read another Alexandre Dumas book in the future.