Les Trois Mosquetaires en Deux Volumes

$650.00
By Moons Rare Books

6b Alexandre Dumas. Paris: Michel Levy, 1868. Two Volumes. French

Notes

Originally serialized in 1844, this timeless masterpiece of historical adventure follows d'Artagnan, a hot-headed young Gascon who travels to Paris with nothing but an old horse, a letter of introduction, and dreams of joining King Louis XIII’s elite guard. He quickly blunders into separate duels with three inseparable musketeers—the honorable Athos, the flamboyant Porthos, and the deeply religious Aramis—but when the duels are violently interrupted by Cardinal Richelieu’s guards, d'Artagnan sides with the musketeers, forging a legendary brotherhood bound by the immortal oath, "All for one, and one for all." Together, the four heroes embark on a high-stakes, cross-channel odyssey to rescue the honor of Queen Anne of Austria, navigating a dangerous web of political intrigue woven by the brilliant Cardinal and his sinister, seductive spy, Milady de Winter. A cornerstone of the swashbuckler genre, the novel seamlessly blends real French history with breathless swordplay, romance, and an unforgettable examination of loyalty, making it a permanent crown jewel of world literature.

Alexandre Dumas was a legendary figure in 19th-century French literature, whose own larger-than-life personality and background deeply infused his work. Dumas, who spent roughly eighteen months writing and serializing the novel between 1844 and 1846 alongside his collaborator Auguste Maquet, was heavily influenced by real cases and family tragedies. He held a deep interest in the memoirs of French police archivist Jacques Peuchet, specifically the real-life 1807 case of François Picaud, a shoemaker wrongfully imprisoned who later exacted a lethal vendetta on his betrayers. Furthermore, the character of Dantès was directly inspired by the status and struggles of Dumas's own father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas—France’s first Black general who was born into slavery, rose to immense military heights, and was ultimately betrayed and left to rot in an Italian prison without the support of the French government. 

Provenance: Sir Herbert Maxwell of Monreith, 7th Bart (1845-1937). As the long-serving President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a pioneer in the early conservation movement, he famously developed the world-renowned Monreith House gardens in Galloway, utilizing his deep empirical knowledge of flora to acclimatize rare exotic plants to the Scottish climate and cementing his legacy as one of Scotland's most respected twentieth-century cultural guardians.

Description

Green canvas boards with half plum purple morocco spines. Green morocco labels to spines with gilt lettering. Gilt top edges. Points bumped. Slight rubbing overall. Some spotting internally and a shallow chip to the preliminary flyleaf. Annotations throughout in pencil. 

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