The Lives of the Three Musketeers
(and D'Artagnan)

 

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Fiction
 
Les Trois Mousquetaires 1844. By Alexandre Dumas. This is where the legend began, based on "The Memoirs of Monsieur D'Artagnan", French history, and the author's own imagination.
Les Quantre Mousquetaires 1844. By Alexandre Dumas. The second volume of the original story, in modern times generally included with the first as a single novel.
Vingt Ans Après 1845. By Alexandre Dumas. The first sequel, set twenty years after the end of the previous novel. Written only one year after the original, this gives us the musketeers as men in early middle age.
Le Vicomte de Bragelonne [or, Ten Years Later] By Alexandre Dumas. Originally printed as a single five-volume work, it is often now published as four books: Ten Years Later, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valiere, The Man in the Iron Mask.
Les Vèritable Mémoires de D'Artagnan le Mousquetaire 1874. By Albert Maurin. This book, published right after the death of Alexandre Dumas, is one of the first attempts to exploit the success of the The Three Musketeers under the pretext of restoring the historical truth of the characters made famous for the writer. It is, however, written like a novel and appears to be based on Mémoires de M. D'Artagnan by Courtilz de Sandras.

Les Trois Petit Mouquetaires

1882. By Èmile Desbeaux. Published with the approval of Alexandre Dumas fils, this novel sets the story told by Dumas within the framework of a Parisian school in 1873. On his way to a boarding school in Paris, eleven-year-old Gascon Marius de Champagnac has stolen from him the letter and money his parents sent with him. His new schoolmates make a mockery of him for his provincial clothes, and he quarrels successively with three boys who will become his best friends.

Le Fils de Porthos, Le Mort d'Aramis 1883. By "Alexandre Dumas, adapted by" Paul Mahalin. This sequel to Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, written more than a decade after the supposed author's death, is purported to be adapted from a forgotten play by Dumas. However, the novel is probably entirely the work of the "adapter". Joel, the son of a brief affair between Porthos and a woman of Belle-Isle during Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, goes in search of his kidnaped love and of his father's true identity. He encounters Aramis, now old and bitter, but the old musketeer--not realizing Joel's identity--is his enemy.
Le Filleul d'Aramis

1896. By Paul Mahalin. The author's second "continuation" of the musketeers' adventures (see Le Fils de Porthos). Aramis, by then Duke of Alaméda and General of the Jesuits, supports Louis XIV against the plots of united European powers in exchange for the support of Louis XIV in Aramis's ambition to become pope. Battles, poisonings, intrigues, and the adventures of Aramis's young godson abound. The story appears to me to contradict the story told by the same author in Le Fils de Porthos.

D'Artagnan, The King-Maker: An Historical Novel 1901. By Henry Llewellyn Williams.
D'Artagnan's Exploit 1904. By Henry Llewellyn Williams.
Les Trois Pages de Monsieur D'Artagnan

1905. By Emile Watin. The story, written for young readers and told in retrospect, of three brothers, Gaston, Pierre and François d' Estirac, who get their start in life in the service of D' Artagnan.

"Le Fils des Trois Mouquetaires" in Pour Lire Sous la Douche 1912. By Cami. The satiric story of a young man whose mother slept with three of the musketeers. He boasts the courage of D'Artagnan, the force of Porthos and the modesty of Athos.
D'Artagnan

By Adrien Guignery. Another of the works claiming to set straight the history abused by Dumas, this Romantic novel combines plagiarisms from Dumas with some true anecdotes and history, much of it plagiarized from the 19th Century historian Anquetil.

The Three Musketeers By Rudyard Kipling.
Le Fils de Trois Mouquetaires

1919. By Cami. A novel based on the author's earlier satiric novella of the same title.

Les Amours de d'Artagnan

1924. By Paul Segonzac. Set just after the death of Mazarin, this novel features D'Artagnan in his role of protector as he involves himself in court conspiracies and the trials of young lovers.

Le Fils de d'Artagnan 1924. By Paul Féval fils. A continuation of the saga beginning after the death of D'Artagnan in Le Vicomte de Bragelonne and presenting George, the son of D'Artagnan and an Italian woman he met while on a diplomatic mission to Rome. Interestingly, the author has ignored the death of Athos, who adopts young George.
Le Vieillesse d'Athos 1925. By Paul Féval fils. Continuation of the story begun in Le Fils de D'Artagnan. George finds his mother, Térésina, from whom he has been separated since birth. In addition to Athos, Aramis (as an ambassador of Spain), Planchet, Bazin, Grimaud and the son of Mousqueton all appear.
D'Artagnan Contre Cyrano de Bergerac

1925. By Paul Féval fils and M. Lassez. A novel in four volumes: The Knight Mystery, Martyrdom of the Queen, The Secrecy of the Bastille, and The Heritage of Buckingham. A sequel to The Three Musketeers of Dumas, this is the story of a conflict between Richelieu and Mazarin and Anne of Austria and a mysterious knight (and his friend, Cyrano de Bergerac). D'Artagnan must find a way to resolve his own conflict, between his loyalty to his queen and his duty as a soldier. Aramis appears as a chaplain.

D'Artagnan et Cyrano Réconciliés

1928. By Paul Féval fils. A novel in three volumes: Secrecy of State, The Escape from the Iron Mask, and Weddings of Cyrano. Completely reconciled after their adventures in D'Artagnan Contre Cyrano de Bergerac, the two heroes have become inseparable friends. While Cyrano sighs for the beautiful eyes of Roxane, D'Artagnan falls in love with Roxanne's sister, Francoise Robin de Vauzenac! Meantime, Mazarin is plotting against Anne of Austria through her secret son, George de Villiers. And then, just as our heroes are to marry the women they love, Barbary pirates make off with D'Artagnan and the ladies so that Cyrano must rescue them from Algeria. Also appearing are Aramis, Bazin, and the man in the iron mask.

The King's Passport 1928. By H. Bedford-Jones. Another novel purporting to tell the truth about D'Artagnan, but which centers on a meeting between D'Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac.
D'Artagnan

1928. By H. Bedford-Jones. A sequel to The Three Musketeers, purporting to be an augmentation of a fragmentary manuscript by Alexandre Dumas. It is unrelated to the same author's The King's Passport. The story opens in 1630 as another crisis threatens Anne of Austria. D'Artagnan, assisted by Athos and Porthos though they have left the service, comes to the rescue of the queen before Richelieu can build a ruinous scandal around the existence of a child, whom Richelieu and others believe to be Anne's. NOTE: The claim that the story is based on a fragment of Dumas's writing is misleading: the fragment in question was a single page, probably the beginning of a journalistic article, and dealing with the thesis written by Aramis when he became a priest. The page is included in the text as Aramis reads it to his friends, but is otherwise unrelated to the plot.

L'Enfant des Mousquetaires

1929. By Jean Demais. The title character is the hidden son of Mazarin and Anne of Austria. Found by Artagnan, the baby, named Christmas, was adopted by the company of the musketeers (without anyone's knowing his origins). As an adolescent, Christmas meets the young Louis XIV and a fraternal and "instinctive" bond is immediately formed. Mazarin, finding Christmas, plots to assassinate Louis XIV and replace him with his son.

Le Beau D'Artagnan et Son Époque 1930. By Ch. Quinel and A. de Montgon. A rather disjointed novel in which D'Artagnan fights duels, rescues ladies in distress, cooks for an ambassador, and romances two women.
Le Jeunesse de D'Artagnan 1930. By Lucien Pemjean. While this novel purports to tell the true early adventures of D'Artagnan and the three musketeers, the author appears to have gotten his information from Courtilz and his own imagination.
Le Capitaine D'Artagnan

1931. By Lucien Pemjean. Like his Le Jeunesse de D'Artagnan, the author claims this story to be a truthful account of the real D'Artagnan's adventures. In it, D'Artagnan seeks revenge against the Duchesse de Montpensier for her murder of his fiancee at the end of the first book and, in a scene straight out of the execution of Milady in Le Trois Mousquetaires, he puts an end to her. Interestingly, for a book claiming to be nonfiction, the faithful lover's reward is to meet many years later the reincarnation of his fiancee, so that the two of them can live happily ever after.

D'Artagnan's Letter 1931. By M. and H. Bedford-Jones. The adventures of young 20th Century Americans who inherit a small island off Brittany. The castle of their ancestors is supposed to hide the family treasure, buried before the French Revolution. The famous musketeer does not actually appear in the story; his connection is that the directions to finding the treasure were written on the the back of a certificate of demobilization granted to the hero's ancestor and signed by D'Artagnan.
Les Chevaliers du Gai

1935. By Cami. In 1934, a countess asks her medium to call forth and materialize the famous musketeers. The effort causes the medium to have a heart attack before the fourth materializes, so that D'Artagnan, Athos and Porthos are stuck in the 20th Century, forced to wait until the medium recovers so that she can return them whence they came. In the meantime, the musketeers meet the modern world and, in their refusal to understand how it has changed, create havoc by behaving in 20th Century Paris as if it were still their own time. Only thanks to the intervention of Aramis, who has remained a spirit, are they able to disincarnate and return to the spirit world.

The Three Musketeers 1935. By John Adams. Novelization of the 1935 movie The Three Musketeers, with many stills from the movie.
Le Voyage Inoui de de m. Rikiki

1938. By Cami. A man and his family travel in a time travel machine invented by his neighbor. The machine randomly takes them along in the past, where they encounter world and French history. In the chapters "The Three Musketeers and a Half" and "The Sun King", Rikiki first comes to the aid of D'Artagnan in a rather unexpected way and then jumps forward 20 years to take on the role of the man in the iron mask in order to thwart a plot.

Les Aventures de D'Artagnan

1938. By Maurice Coriem. Another attempt to restore historical truth to the story of D'Artagnan while preserving the character's Romantic aura. It is a highly simplified story written for young people in the form of a novel and based directly on Le Memoires de D'Artagnan.

La Protegée de D'Artagnan

1945. By Gabriel Fersen. An abundantly illustrated novella in which the four musketeers find a baby abandoned on the street at Christmas. They baptize the small girl Noëlle and place her with a nurse. Sixteen years later, the beautiful girl is a damsel in distress and D'Artagnan comes to the rescue.

Les Quatres Mouquetaires: L'Eminence Rouge

1946. By Xavier de L'Ange. While officially the four musketeers of the title, who fight Richelieu and contend with evil spies, are not the musketeers of Dumas, they are in fact direct copies with changed names--and, due to typos, sometimes the names aren't changed!

The Three Musketeers 1947. By Tiffany Thayer. A version of the classic story that answers the question of how Milady became the monster Dumas depicted.
The Story of the Three Musketeers 1948. By Frank L. Beals and Bernadine Bailey. The Dumas classic severely simplified and bowdlerized for children. The number of characters has been cut drastically, almost all detail has been removed, and each chapter ends with a word list and questions for the reader to consider.
Le Triomphe de Richelieu

1949. By Robert and Jean Grimey. The adventures of Antoine de Brayberolles and his friend Raphaël de Champrosay, who enter the service of Richelieu. Antoine's courage and skill make him the rival of D'Artagnan. Dolorès von Meiden, an agent of the Duchesse de Chevreuse charged with attempting to assassinate Richelieu, undertakes to pit D'Artagnan and Brayberolles against one another.

Le Capitaine D'Artagnan 1949. By H-l Thiriot. Reprint of Le Capitaine D'Artagnan by Lucien Pemjean, with a change in the name of the author.
"Frederic, D'Artagnan and Le petite Chinoise" in Les Indes Galandes

1952. By Roger Nimier. This Christmas tale tells the history of a little boy, Frederic, who has fallen in love with Shou, a Chinese neighbor. Frederic is very unhappy because Shou rejected his advances saying,"France is smaller than China". But, in a dream, Frederic receives unexpected help from his hero, D'Artagnan. With the musketeer's help, Frederic conquers China and annexes it to France, thus winning the hand of Shou.

Sang de D'Artagnan

1952. By Jehan Lebas. This story is set during the last years of the reign of Louis XIV, long after the death of D'Artagnan. It relates the adventures of Philippe de Laboise, a young provincial gentleman--in fact, D'Artagnan's nephew--who comes to Paris as D'Artagnan did to become a King's guard and make his fortune.

L'Enfant des Mousquetaires

1953. By Maxime la Tour. A condensed version of the book of the same title by Demais.

Les Deux Mousquetaires

1954. by Paul-Yves Sébillot. This novel, which inspired a play of the same name, centers on D'Artagnan and a new musketeer who, as they move between Paris and the war of Savoy, face many dangers in the service of the cardinal as they take on a plot by Spanish agents and a very young Cyrano de Bergerac. The text includes many footnotes on the historical context.

"D'Artagnan et la Russet-Red Dame" in Contes du Val-de-Saire

1955. By Maurice-Ch. Fox. The hero of this novella, though no relation of the famous D'Artagnan, has his name and personality. The action, however, is set in 1702, where the musketeers wait for a possible English invasion. D'Artagnan detects a conspiracy and sets out to thwart it.

Le Grand Secret de D'Artagnan

1955. By Arsène Lefort. This book seeks to fill in the period between Dumas's first and second novels. D'Artagnan finds documents indicating that Louis XIII was not, and thus Louis XIV is not, the rightful king of France. The documents become the center of conflict with de Condé, who would inherit the crown, for possession of the documents. In the absence of his old comrades, D'Artagnan's support is his elder sister, Germaine, prioress of a convent.

Three Musketeers and a Lady By Tiffany Thayer. Abridgement of the author's The Three Musketeers for the paperback version.
D'Artagnan, Capitaine-Lieutenant des Mousquetaires du Roy

1961. By Michel Duino. Another book aiming to restore historical truth to the story of D'Artagnan, and another one which instead combines Courtilz de Sandras and Alexandre Dumas.

D'Artagnan Amoreux

1962. By Roger Nimier. Taking place after The Three Musketeers and before Twenty Years After, this story was intended to be the first of a series, but the author died before he could write more. D'Artagnan is charged by Richelieu to bring back to Paris from Rome a secret peace treaty signed by all the sovereigns of Europe. Along the way, he conceives an unrequited love that inspires him to seek death in battle. Only the intervention of the three other musketeers saves him.

Furioso

1971. By Voldemar Lestienne. The story of the musketeers is transplanted to World War II in occupied France. The names are changed, but the characters are clearly based on those of Dumas, as are a number of the adventures.

Fracasso

1973. By Voldemar Lestienne. Sequel to Furioso, continuing the adventures of the four "musketeers" of the Free French Army during the Second World War.

The Four Musketeers 1975. By Michael Hardwick. Novelization of the 1974 Richard Lester movie. Somewhat loosely resembles the Dumas version.
Le Cousin de Porthos

1981. By Jean-Luc Déjean. The story begins in 1629 when Richelieu orders D'Artagnan on a top secret mission to carry a message to the Duc de Rohan, head of the Protestants of the Cevennes. Since his three friends have already left the musketeers, D'Artagnan travels with old enemies who have become friends: de Jussac, Cahusac, Biscarat, de Fesq. The four men are aided in their mission by Planchet and Porthos's cousin. Aramis and Mazarin also appear.

Milady, Mon Amour: Une femme dans la tourmente 1627-1628

1986. By Yak Rivais. This clever novel overturns the universe that Dumas gave us, revealing that the characters of the story's principals were not at all what we thought. Poor Milady was an innocent and sensitive victim, Athos an insensitive brute, D'Artagnan a rapist, de Winter an evil usurper, and de Wardes a cultivated and loving man.

Le Rendezvous des Héros

1987. By Paco Ignacio Taibo II. A short political novel set in Mexico City in 1968 and originally published in Spanish (I don't know the proper Spanish title, but I'm looking for it). Nestor Roca, in a hospital bed, schemes to avenge the crushing of his political movement by inviting all its favorite heroes to the rescue: the Musketeers, Sherlock Holmes, the Light Brigade, Tigers of Malaysia, and Sheriff Wyatt Earp, among others. All answer and come to start a Revolution in Mexico City.

A Candle for D'Artagnan

1989. By Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. D'Artagnan had a romance with an ancient Roman vampire and, had his body not been torn in two at the battle of Maastricht in 1673, he would upon his death have risen as a vampire. Given this fantastical premise, the novel sticks fairly closely to the history rather than leaning on Dumas.

D'Artagnan 1989. By Jean-Loup Dabadie. I would invite anyone knowing anything about this work to enlighten me, too.
Great Illustrated Classics: The Three Musketeers 1990. By Alexandre Dumas as adapted by Malvina G. Vogel. The Dumas classic abridged for young readers.
The Phoenix Guards 1991. by Stephen Brust. A heroic sci-fi/fantasy homage to the musketeers, parallel to Les Trois Mousquetaires.
Le Dernier Amour d'Aramis

1993. Subtitled: ou les Vrai Memoires du Chevalier René d'Herblay, qui Devint Évêque de Vannes, Duc d'Alamedia, Grand d'Espagne, Ambassadeur de Sa Majesté Très Catholique, Préposé Général des Jésuites, et Fut Mousquetairre du Roi du France dans la Compagnie de M. de Tréville sous le Nom d'Aramis. By Jean-Pierre Dufreigne. Winner of Le Prix Interallié literary prize in 1993, this is the memoir of Aramis, both a prequel and a sequel to the Dumas books, a subtle exploration of the least-loved musketeer.

Club Dumas

1993. By Arturo Pérez-Reverte. A thriller whose mysteries the hero can solve only by reference to the intrigues of Richelieu in Les Trois Mousquetaires and to the lawsuit in Venice of a 17th Century printer of a satanic book. Made into a movie, The Mask of Dumas.

Five Hundred Years After 1994. By Stephen Brust. A heroic sci-fi/fantasy homage to the musketeers, parallel to Twenty Years After and sequel to The Phoenix Guards.
Viscount of Adrilankha By Stephen Brust. A heroic sci-fi/fantasy homage to the musketeers, parallel to Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, sequel to Five Hundred Years After.
Muttketeer! 1997. By Bill Crider and Rick Duffield. Wishbone, the well-read Jack Russell Terrier who promotes reading for children on the PBS series, Wishbone, imagines himself as D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers.
The Mutt in the Iron Muzzle 1997. By Michael Jan Friedman. Wishbone, the well-read Jack Russell Terrier who promotes reading for children on the PBS series, Wishbone, imagines himself as both Louis XIV and his imprisoned twin, Phillippe, from The Man in the Iron Mask portion of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.
Les Trois Hussards

1999. By François Cérésa. Adventures of Alexandre Dumas as he arrives in Paris in 1823, where he encounters a hussar lieutenant who is his perfect double. The two switch places and while the hussar, Antoine Dupuy, goes off to Spain, Dumas meets Dupuy's closest friends, three hussars who bear a strong resemblance to the musketeers about whom he will later write.

Not Exactly the Three Musketeers 1999. By Joel Rosenberg. No actual relation to our heroes, but a science fiction story in the spirit of the historical romances of Dumas.
De Plume et d'Épée: Roman Louis XIII

1999. By Hubert Monteilhet. Picaresque adventures of Arnaud d'Espalunge, a Béarnais gentleman who becomes a spy for Richelieu. D'Artagnan and the Musketeers are seen through his eyes.

Les Nouveau Trois Mousquetaires

1999. Edited by Paul-Loup Sulitzer. Anthology resulting from an annual contest in which the authors write a story using a well-known literary work as a starting point. The contest of 1999 was devoted to Les Trois Mousquetaires. This collection contains fifteen prize-winning stories, including nine written by adults and six by young people.

Please note: Full information about most of these books, with more complete summaries, text analysis, book covers, etc., can be found on the website: www.pastichesdumas.com (in French).