The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It recounts the adventures of a young man called D'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a musketeer. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.
The story of D'Artagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne. Those three novels by Dumas are together known as D'Artagnan Romances.
The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the magazine Le Siècle between March and July 1844. Dumas claimed it was based on manuscripts he had discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It was proved Dumas based his work on the book Mémoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan, capitaine lieutenant de la première compagnie des Mousquetaires du Roi (Memories of Mister D'Artagnan, Lieutenant Captain of the first company of the King's Musketeers) by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (Cologne, 1700). The book was borrowed from the Marseilles public library, and the card-index remains to this day. (Dumas kept the book when he went back to Paris.)
It covers the adventures of D'Artagnan and his friends in 1625, as they are involved in intrigues involving the weak King Louis XIII of France, his powerful and cunning advisor Cardinal Richelieu, the beautiful Queen Anne of Austria, her English lover, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, and the siege of the rebellious Huguenot city of La Rochelle.
Adaptations
The novel has been filmed many times. Notable film versions include:
- Les Trois Mousquetaires (1921) – a French silent film version featuring Aimé Simon-Girard as D'Artagnan and Claude Mérelle as Milady de Winter. A blockbuster of its day, which spawned a number of sequels (an adaptation of Twenty Years After was released the following year); remade as a talkie in 1933 with the same director and many of the same cast.
- The Three Musketeers (1921) – a silent film version starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
- The Three Musketeers (1935) – b/w version for RKO starring Paul Lukas and Walter Abel.
- The Three Musketeers (1939) – comedy version starring Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers
- The Three Musketeers (1948) – directed by George Sidney for MGM; starring Gene Kelly, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury, Lana Turner, June Allyson.
- The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974) – a more-than-usually-complete adaptation directed by Richard Lester from a screenplay by George MacDonald Fraser; starring Michael York as D'Artagnan, Oliver Reed as Athos, Frank Finlay as Porthos, Richard Chamberlain as Aramis, Charlton Heston as Richelieu, Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter, and Raquel Welch as Constance Bonacieux.
The team reassembled fifteen years later for a film version of Twenty Years After, released in 1989 under the title The Return of the Musketeers.
- The Three Musketeers (1993) – a Disney production starring Charlie Sheen as Aramis, Kiefer Sutherland as Athos, Chris O'Donnell as D'Artagnan, Oliver Platt as Porthos, and Tim Curry as Richelieu. Bryan Adams wrote the hit "All For Love" for the movie's soundtrack, performing it with Rod Stewart and Sting.
- The Musketeer (2001) – Very loose adaptation, in a style imitating Asian action movies.
- The Three Musketeers (2004) – yet another Disney remake, this one a made-for-video animated film, with Mickey Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck in the title roles.
See also
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