Description
“D’ARTAGNAN WAS NOT THE MAN EVER TO SUE FOR QUARTER”: RARE FIRST COMPLETE EDITION IN ENGLISH OF DUMAS’ THE THREE MUSKETEERS, 1846, IN CONTEMPORARY BINDING
DUMAS, Alexandre. (BARROW, William, translator). The Three Musketeers; or, the Feats and Fortunes of a Gascon Adventurer. London: Bruce and Wyld, 1846. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown calf, raised bands, black morocco spine label, marbled boards.
Rare first complete edition in English of this classic French novel, in contemporary three-quarter calf and marbled boards.
Dumas’ book remains “one of the best of all cape-and-sword novels” (Harvey & Heseltine, 720). “A historical romance, it relates the adventures of four fictional swashbuckling heroes who lived during the reigns of the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV. At the beginning of the story D’Artagnan arrives in Paris from Gascony and becomes embroiled in three duels with the three musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. The four become such close friends that when D’Artagnan serves an apprenticeship as a cadet, which he must do before he can become a musketeer, each of his friends takes turns sharing guard duty with him. The daring escapades of the four comrades are played out against a background of court intrigue involving the powerful Cardinal Richelieu” (Kuiper, 1113). The Three Musketeers was widely popular both in France and in England; among its greatest admirers were William Thackeray, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Andrew Lang. The first edition (in French) was published by Baundry in Paris in 1844. In English, The Three Musketeers first appeared serially in the London Journal issued by Vickers in 1846. Vickers also issued it the same year as a penny weekly and as fivepenny and sixpenny monthly parts with woodblock illustrations by John Gilbert. The same company also issued a one-volume edition of the The Three Muskeeters in 1846, but it included only a portion of the text (132 pages) and the title was changed to Buckingham and Richelieu. This is the first complete edition in English. This copy bound without series title page, indicating that this was Volume I of the eight-volume Library of Foreign Romance, but with the four-page “Preface to the Library of Foreign Romance” present. Reed, 171. Vicaire III:360.
Text generally clean, with only occasional minor spotting. Expert restoration to contemporary calf binding. A very desirable copy of this classic and scarce title.
