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The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas

Start date: July 1, 2025

Finish date: September 30, 2025

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Q2 - Daniel Deronda
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Sep 02, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fiction, historical-fiction, read-in-french, french-19th-c, favorites, made-into-movie

The initial tale where d'Artagnon as a relatively poor, relationless noble arriving in Paris and making friends with the legendary Porthos, Athos and Artemis and subsequently participating in a big adventure is one of the most exhilarating books of the 19th C in French literature. While not a children's book (due to the difficulty of the French text), the story itself is of course widely known and a favourite for story tellers (using abridged or illustrated versions) and for movie makers. My adv The initial tale where d'Artagnon as a relatively poor, relationless noble arriving in Paris and making friends with the legendary Porthos, Athos and Artemis and subsequently participating in a big adventure is one of the most exhilarating books of the 19th C in French literature. While not a children's book (due to the difficulty of the French text), the story itself is of course widely known and a favourite for story tellers (using abridged or illustrated versions) and for movie makers. My advice is to read this one and savour it but then continue on to 20 Year Later which is the sequel and is a fantastic story as well...not to mention the crowning achievement (IMHO) of Dumas, The Vicomte de Bragelonne. This first volume takes place during the reign of Louis XIII and does present a nice portrait of life during this time of relative stability in French history.

This first volume is playful and light. Dumas uses this book to present four of his favorite protagonists: D'Artagnan, Portos, Athos, and Aramis (along with their comic-relief porters and so on) and the origins of their lifelong friendships.

Happy father note: I was super proud when my 10-year old son grabbed my copy off the bookshelf and read it cover to cover. He then went on to the second book but kind of pooped out after 300 pages, understandable...

This is one of my favorite French books but I would highly recommend reading the entire series - 20 Years Later, and the three Vicomte de Bragelonne books to get the full picture. Note that each book is set in a specific historical context:
3 Musketeers: reign Louis XIII
20 Years Later: Regence of Louis XIV and the Fronde
Vicomte de Bragelonne 1: Louis XIV early reign (conflict with Fouquet)
Vicomte de Bragelonne 2/Louse de Valiere: reign of Louis XIV and romantic intrigues at court
Vicomte de Bragelonne 3/Man in the Iron Mask: reign of Louis XIV and the fall of Fouquet

Despite adding some fictional elements (well, lots of fictional elements) and controversial interpretations (such as making the very real and still mysterious Man in the Iron Mask to be Louis XIV's twin brother Philippe for which there is zero historical evidence), the scenes, costumes, manners and overall atmosphere is painstakingly realistic for the periods in which these books are set. They are all extraordinary and among the works that Dumas put his own hand too (in other words, he relied less on ghost writers for this series than nearly any of his other books.) ...more

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