Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Table of Contents

 

 

 

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 collar 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. (page 11-12)

 

“All for one, one for all—that is our motto, is it not?” (page 115)

 

“Oh, nothing but a scratch.” (page 233)

 

Immediately eight swords glittered in the rays of the setting sun, and the combat began with an animosity very natural between men twice enemies. (page 361)

 

During the evening she despaired of fate and of herself. She did not invoke God, we very well know, but she had faith in the genius of evil—that immense sovereignty which reigns in all the details of human life, and by which, as in the Arabian fable, a single pomegranate seed is sufficient to reconstruct a ruined world. (page 590)

Published by Barnes & Noble Books
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Alexandre Dumas published
The Three Musketeers
in 1844.

The present translation, like many editions which first introduced English
readers to Dumas’s work, remains anonymous.

 

Originally published in mass market format in 2004 by Barnes & Noble Classics
with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,

Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

This trade paperback edition published in 2004.

 

Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

Copyright © 2004 by Barbara T. Cooper.

 

Note on Alexandre Dumas, The World of Alexandre Dumas and
The Three Musketeers,

Inspired by
The Three Musketeers,
and Comments & Questions

Copyright @ 2004 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and
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Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics
colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

 

ISBN-13: 9’78-1-59308-148-5

eISBN : 978-1-411-43329-8

ISBN-10: 1-59308-148-0

LC Control Number 2004102769

 

Produced and published in conjunction with:

Fine Creative Media, Inc.

322 Eighth Avenue

New York, NY 10001

 

Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

QM

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Alexandre Dumas was born on July 24, 1802, in Villers-Cotterets, a town northeast of Paris. He was the grandson of a French nobleman, the Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean slave. His father, Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, took the name Dumas when he enlisted in the French army. After a period of illustrious service, he rose to the rank of general; but by the end of the eighteenth century, he had fallen into disfavor with Napoleon and was subsequently imprisoned. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas died penniless and broken at age forty-five, leaving his family impoverished. Young Alexandre received only a limited education; however, he was an avid reader, and his elegant penmanship got him a position as clerk to a solicitor. In 1823 he moved to Paris, where, through his father’s connections, he became a copyist for the Duke of Orléans, the future King Louis-Philippe.