Three Musketeers

Three Musketeers Report

Avery Valerio

The book I chose to read was the The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Despite this book being long I highly recommend this book to all who want to read about action, love, evil plots, murder, and finally a great siege. This book was riddled with many specific characters and places. The author's writing stile uses a lot of dialog and describes the thoughts of the characters with exceptional quality. The book The Three Musketeers is now sitting on a pedestal along with some of my other favorite books and I would highly recommend this book.

Alexandre Dumas was born July 24^th 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts, France. He was the son of the French Nobleman Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was the mixed race son born in a french colony now known as Haiti. His father was a French Nobleman and his mother was a slave. Enough said about Thomas Dumas. Alexandre Dumas is now known as one of the most successful French writers in history. His books have been translated in over one hundred different languages and read all over the world. However he did not, dare I say, “hit the ground running”. As a young boy of mixed French and Afro-Caribbean ancestry he faced discrimination left and right. If that wasn’t bad enough, at the age of four his father died of cancer and left his mother with out a means for providing for Alexandre Dumas. Now growing up in a life of poverty Dumas did not have means for acquiring a proper education. He was able to combat this by reading everything he could get his hands on. His mother would tell him stories about his fathers triumph during the campaigns of the revolution which greatly inspired him. Even though his family was dirt poor they were still able to keep his father's aristocratic standings. In 1822 he moved to Pairs and worked in the Palais Royal. From here he began writing news paper articles. He later wrote his first play, Henry III and His Courts, and his second play, Christine. These two plays were such a hit that they enabled Dumas to generate a significant income as a full-time writer. Throughout his career he worked on many fiction, plays, and non-fiction pieces. Among these are: The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Crisco, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de La Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. This is only a small list of the books that Dumas has written and many on this list are part of the D'Artagnan series of books. Dumas wanted to include as much historical accuracy as he possible could while at the same time he tried to write an exciting adventure through the use of fiction. He later went on to marry and actress and father two illegitimate children. Alexandre Dumas died December 5^th 1870 at the age of 68.

The book The Three Musketeers is considered the greatest “cloak and sword” book of all time. This book follows the story of (brace yourselves) not three musketeers, but four. The book takes place during the 1600's in France, and in later parts England. We follow the adventures of a young Gascon by the name of D'Artagnan. At the start of his journey he arrives at Meung with nothing more than his father's wisdom on courage, fifteen ecus (money), a recipe for a strange gypsy brew that has the power to heal any wound that doesn’t affect the heart, a sword, a funny looking yellow horse, and a letter of recommendation to Monsieur de Treville. D'Artagnan is essentially a young brawler who has the desire to fight anyone who looks at him wrong. This is actually how we become acquainted with his three friends; Athos, Arimis, and Porthos. We are later introduced to their servants; Grimaud the servant to Athos, Bazin the servant to Arimis, and Mosqueton the servant to Porthos. The three musketeers all have well developed personalities ranging from the gentle soon to be priest known as Arimis, to the upfront and extravagant Porthos, and the loveable leader Athos, who more than enjoys a glass wine now and then (when I said a glass I really meant bottles and bottles at a time, and when I meant from time to time I really meant he is drunk frequently.). Throughout the corse of this book we see plotting, dueling, romance, adventure, mystery, the siege of La Rochelle, and the rage of a deadly murderer.

This book was captivating and entertaining throughout the hole thing, and I would highly recommend this book to all. The main reason I was drawn to this book was the name. It is a well known name and most everybody knows that this books is one of the best adventure books ever written. This idea really drew me towards it, then pushed me away after the discovery of the amount of pages. Don't take me lightly when I say that this is a long book, the version that I read was 635 pages long and the original is over a thousand pages. Despite the length it is fun, exciting, and very well written for the style of book that it is. The author was very inspired by his fathers war stories and in some ways he was trying to write an adventure book that reflected these events. For the last time, I highly recommend this book.