Les Trois Mousquetaires. by DUMAS, Alexandre - 1844

Paris: Baudry,, 1844. The author's best-known work and one of his two masterpieces, The Three Musketeers in original wrappers 8 volumes, octavo. Original yellow wrappers, titles to spines and covers in black, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. Housed in red quarter morocco solander boxes by the Chelsea Bindery. A little skilful conservation to spines, trivial loss to some ends, front joint of vol. II neatly reattached, faint marginal foxing to contents. A very nice copy of this scarce publication, in bright wrappers. First separate edition, extremely rare in the original wrappers. The author's best-known work and one of his two masterpieces, Les Trois Mousquetaires was originally published earlier the same year as a serial novel in the Parisian newspaper Le Siècle, from 14 March to 1 July 1844. The Three Musketeers "has become the archetypal adventure story, as well as the best known and the most widely read (and adapted) of all French novels. In the historical context of its production it was also the prototype of the roman-feuilleton (serial novel), which enjoyed phenomenal success in the 1840s... It provided a natural outlet for Alexandre Dumas's talents and energies as he combined elements of the historical romance of Sir Walter Scott with the formulas and themes of the romantic feuilleton... This 'Homeric clash of Titans', as David Coward described it, immediately became a best-seller, and was quickly translated into several languages, with no less than six pirated Belgian editions on the market in the year of publication. As Anthony Burgess noted, Dumas was truly 'one of the great myth-makers of his and any age'" (Murray, p. 118). Murray, Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850, Vol. II, 2004; Coward (ed.), The Three Musketeers, 1991.