The Three Musketeers

Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers is one of the most perennially popular works of French literature. It has been continuously in print since its original publication in serial form in the Parisian newspaper Le Siècle (March 14-July 1, 1844) and has also been the subject of numerous cinematographic adaptations. Dumas himself wrote two sequels to the novel. The first, Twenty Years After, also appeared in Le Siècle (January 21-August 2, 1845); the second, The Vicomte de Bragelonne (sometimes translated as The Man in the Iron Mask), was likewise published in Le Siècle, with significant interruptions, between October 20, 1847, and January 10, 1850. Dumas also adapted The Three Musketeers for the stage. Under the title La Jeunesse des Mousquetaires (The Musketeers‘Early Years), the play was first performed at Dumas’s own Theatre Historique in 1849, with Mélingue starring as the book’s hero, D’Artagnan.1 Other authors, too, have taken advantage of the popularity of The Three Musketeers, by penning numerous imitations and continuations of Dumas’s masterpiece.2