Member: sakayume

Yeah, they (Vicomte de Bragelonne and Louise de la Vallière) are usually not included--and don't forget them, our friend RLS loved those sections, especially Bragelonne which he revered. The whole cycle should be about a linear foot or just slightly more. Here is a bit from a Stevenson's essay on Vicomte de Bragelonne (I don't think there are any spoilers in it, this part anyway):

My acquaintance with the VICOMTE began, somewhat indirectly, in the year
of grace 1863, when I had the advantage of studying certain illustrated
dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The name of d'Artagnan in the legends
I already saluted like an old friend, for I had met it the year before in
a work of Miss Yonge's. My first perusal was in one of those pirated
editions that swarmed at that time out of Brussels, and ran to such a
troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I understood but little of the
merits of the book; my strongest memory is of the execution of d'Eymeric
and Lyodot - a strange testimony to the dulness of a boy, who could enjoy
the rough-and-tumble in the Place de Greve, and forget d'Artagnan's
visits to the two financiers. My next reading was in winter-time, when I
lived alone upon the Pentlands. I would return in the early night from
one of my patrols with the shepherd; a friendly face would meet me in the
door, a friendly retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I
would sit down with the VICOMTE for a long, silent, solitary lamp-light
evening by the fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it
was enlivened with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of
musketry, and such a stir of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary
in which I gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and pull
the blind aside, and see the snow and the glittering hollies chequer a
Scotch garden, and the winter moonlight brighten the white hills. Thence
I would turn again to that crowded and sunny field of life in which it
was so easy to forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a place busy
as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and
sounding with delightful speech. I carried the thread of that epic into
my slumbers, I woke with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book
again at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must lay it down and turn
to my own labours; for no part of the world has ever seemed to me so
charming as these pages, and not even my friends are quite so real,
perhaps quite so dear, as d'Artagnan.

Stevenson is like Dumas in that there are many less iconic works that are not being published by today's publishers. One of the last books he wrote was a real pleasure. St Ives, if you get the chance. The travelogues Stevenson wrote are also marvelous.

Milady killed Constance, so I guess it was an appropriate end for her. For some reason though, I would have liked to have seen her in the next book.

posted by DanMat at 10:37 am (EST) on Apr 28, 2011

Well, thinking back, that poor viper of a woman Milady gets her head chopped off too. The scene(Charles' beheading) is actually a little histrionic, but interesting. Actually, the whole segue up to England is cool.

I didn't know Le Clercq did a translation of the Musketeers. The Oxford is good, they just need to go the extra inch and insert the paragraph back in.

Don't forget the two books in between 20 Years After and Man in the Iron Mask (you might have to go to Oxford for these or a reprint on Amazon from Fredonia press or BiblioBazaar):

The Vicomte of Bragelonne
Louise de la Vallière

Read the first 30 pages of this, it's great!

http://books.google.com/books?id=Uuk-AAAAYAAJ&dq=chevalier%20harmental&p...

There is a street in the book called TEMPS-PERDU and some think this is where Proust may have got the inspiration for the title of his novel.

posted by DanMat at 2:43 pm (EST) on Apr 27, 2011

Hven't read the Black Arrow yet, sounds like you are enjoying it! Another 25 years on Stevenson's life would have left the literary world that much richer.

I took a break from the Musketeers. Finished Twenty Years After, five or so years ago. I need a refresher before I begin agian. There were character's children involved in that one. They witness the beheading of Charles.

The Oxford paperback edition of The Three Musketeers left out the little paragraph where it is implied that D'Artagan sleeps with Milady. Unforgiveable! I just finished an obscure Dumas titled Olympe de Clèves. Really good! Fredonia Books (a reprint company) publishes it.

Here is a digital copy, if you are curious:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mglAAAAAYAAJ&dq=olympe%20de%20cleves&pg...

posted by DanMat at 1:54 pm (EST) on Apr 26, 2011