October 2025: Alexandre Dumas, père

In October we have a date with Alexandre Dumas, père (1802–1870).

I grew up reading D'Artagnan Romances and The Count of Monte Cristo.

What do you plan to read this month?

PS: If someone decides to check on the works of his son (Alexandre Dumas fils), please do not hesitate to post as well - while the father is the focus this month, there is something to be said about reading them side by side.

I am intending to read The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or more specifically the first part of the immense novel which is really four novels in one. It's a sequel to The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After.

Touchstones not working properly.

I plan on reading The Black Tulip. If time permits, I might read The Lady of the Camellias by A. Dumas, fils. The two novels were published within a year or 2 of each other.

I've already read the Count, and the entirety of the d'Artagnan series so this time around I will be starting the Valois romance series. Although I've already read La Reine Margot it was ages ago (2012!) and I don't remember it at all. As it is the first book of this series I will be rereading it this October. I do need to finish my current Zola read first so hoping for a start near the beginning of the second week of October.

>4 lilisin: i do not know that book, I may just try it out

>4 lilisin: I am not sure if I am up for a re-read of that. There is that truly awful execution scene...

I read The Black Tulip back in 2012, and enjoyed it. I've also read La Reine Margot.

>4 lilisin: >5 cindydavid4: >6 MissWatson: I loved La Reine Margot. At the end of my review on my thread, I said "Read this for just plain fun and escape." There are few writers who can do that as well as Dumas.

I think I will read Twenty Years After for this theme. I got bogged down in it once before, but things look more promising right now.

The Vicomte de Bragelonne is an immense novel, which is the third in Dumas's D'Artagnan trilogy after The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. In English translations, this is always divided into three or four volumes. What I have read here in the Delphi Classics ebook edition is the first of these four volumes, slightly confusingly also called The Vicomte de Bragelonne. The action is set some 30 years after The Three Musketeers, and our four heroes are all living separate lives. The thrust of the novel is them all coming together again in the context of Louis XIV's coming of age as he emerges from the influence of his chief minister Cardinal Mazarin as the latter lies dying, and the consequent struggle for power and influence between Mazarin's protégé Colbert and the finance minister Fouquet. In the process, D'Artagnan and Athos almost casually restore King Charles II to the throne of Britain. As a swashbuckler, I thought this was nowhere near as good as its predecessors, especially The Three Musketeers, and apart from a few set piece scenes and some nice touches of humour especially involving Porthos, I found this a bit of a drag in places.

I remember why I don't remember anything about La Reine Margot from the first time I read it. There is so much scheming that it's hard to tell who is on which side. I've had to reread the first 4 chapters three times and write out a chart to finally get who is scheming against who. Also, I feel it is very important to read about the massacre of Saint-Barthelemy beforehand, spoilers be damned. However I'm still confused on one point.

The massacre is said to have been schemed out by Catherine de Medicis but so far it seems that Charles IX is the big instigator. He sets up the amiral de Coligny and sends out Francois de Louviers-Marevel to kill him. Later with Charles, de Guise tells him that the following evening "all of the king's enemies will be eliminated" and the king pretends it's hogwash but he is pretending. So really, isn't Charles the actual manipulator of everything while Catherine only thinks she is?

Ah the Valois novels - you're totally right about the scheming and backstabbing - it's off the hook. I thoroughly enjoyed the series though. I reviewed them all, surprisingly as I didn't the D'Artagnan novels (forgot one).

>10 lilisin: My memory isn’t what it used to be, but the books I read about the Massacre all suggested a different culprit, and most were rather partisan in their description. Didn’t Dumas also present it differently in different books?

>12 MissWatson:
I've gotten to the part where it is revealed that Charles' doings were under the hand of Catherine de Medicis. While historically it is unsure how much she did, Dumas definitely puts her and de Guise as the co-instigators of all the events.

>13 lilisin: Ah! At one point I need to re-read it, but I am still wary of that execution scene. Maybe if I skim it...

Well, I have finished one of his more obscure novels, L’île de feu, and I can say there’s a reason for it. The editor in his preface describes it as Dumas’ foray into Gothic (or Noir Fantastique, as the French call it), and I am not entirely convinced. It reminded me more of the adventure stories located in exotic parts of the world, in this case it is the island of Java in 1847, so it is more or less contemporary and yet full of ancient mysticism.

The problem is that Dumas spends too much time describing the landscape, flora and fauna, instead of giving us proper motivation for the machinatiuons of his bad guys. The dialogue is melodramatic, the young lovers are extremely boring, and the bad guys seem to have plans but no idea of seeing them through, except for the snake charmer who gets his revenge, but without the reader ever learning exactly what was his grievance.

Added to this were many inconvenient typos and at least two instances where lines were missing. You never get a real sense of the place and the people living in it: the young lovers have a baby halfway through, but we never learn his name, he needs a wetnurse who goes off with the young man suddenly, and Dumas completely forgets to tell us how the baby survived then. He starts a scene and then switches to another part of the action, and the situation is left dangling without proper follow-up. I think this one is only for completists.

>15 MissWatson: Thanks for taking one for the team! Looks like a good one to skip, which is hard to pin on any Dumas, but honestly I couldn't make it through The Black Tulip.

>16 Bookmarque: I think it’s the strange setting, he isn’t really in his element here.

>15 MissWatson: For what it’s worth, the book also contains two short stories, and they are typical Dumas and very enjoyable, and also slightly Gothic (their subject matter probabaly borrowed from ETA Hoffmann). He tells them in the first person which gives them immediacy.
In Bal Masqué, a friend arrives on his doorstep, dishevelled and nearly off his head: he has just been to the cemetery and there found the grave of a woman whom he met at a masked ball and fell violently in love with, but never learned her name or saw her again.
The other, Invraisemblabe, starts with Dumas receiving an anonymous letter accusing him of having lifted The Three Musketeers word for word from the Memoirs of M de la Fere, which annoys him, and then another letter arrives which encloses a story about a man raised from the grave by Satan so he can meet a woman he is obsessed with. I liked the fun he pokes at himself and his readers here.

I have just this minute finished reading The Three Musketeers, and enjoyed it immensely. Next stop for November is Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy.

I have finished La femme au collier de velours which is a lovely and short tale set in 1793 Paris. He sends young ETA Hoffmann there and lets him have an amour fou at the tender age of eighteen amidst the days of Terror in the French Revolution, and it’s amazing how much he packs into these 130 pages. (Of course, everything is his invention, Hoffmann was still in Königsberg at the time). It is scary and funny in turns, and I loved it.

There’s also a short piece written after the death of Charles Nodier in which he acknowledges his debt to his friend who gave him a lift up when he started out as a young playwright. And who also, according to Dumas, provided the plot for this book.

I've finished The Black Tulip (1850), one of Dumas' last major novels. This is a short and engaging historical tale of a Dutch tulip grower in the mid-17th century amid real political uprisings in Holland. The story begins with the real events of the mob deaths of the DeWitt brothers in 1672, accused of being traitors to the Prince, William of Orange. The story quickly shifts to the fictional hero, Cornelius van Baerle, a wealthy doctor and avid tulip grower, who, amidst the tulip mania of the 17th century, takes up the challenge to grow a perfect black tulip for a major prize. His envious neighbor, who fails in the quest for the black tulip, embarks on a revenge plan, alerting authorities to circumstantial evidence that implicates Cornelius in the DeWitt brothers' traitorous plot. Cornelius is imprisoned and there he falls in love with Rosa, the jailer's daughter, who helps him to cultivate his black tulip in secrecy. The rest of the plot revolves around this quest.

I really enjoyed this charming tale, which has adventure, romance, revenge and a quest for the perfect tulip. It almost felt like a fairy tale in a way. Dumas, however, has more than just romance here: the faithful Rosa questions whether Cornelius loves his tulip more than he loves her, implying what type of person elevates his Art over his human relationships? Dumas also compares beautiful scenes and objects to famous works of art throughout the book. It was a delightful reading experience and the translation by Robin Buss was smooth and accessible. I had a hard time with The Count of Monte Cristo, which seemed all revenge to me. This little novel (234 pages) was a good mix of romance, adventure and revenge that felt just right.

I will be needing November to finish my book so I'll keep you guys updated!

Voting for Jan-Mar 2026 is open:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/375332#

I never posted my review after finishing La Reine Margot so here it is.

When I read this back in 2012 I had no idea it was part of a trilogy so I reread it this year so that I can read the next two books in the Valois romance saga. I remembered overall enjoying the book but admit to have being a bit confused with all the scheming, and also not finding it as powerful a book as The Count or the d'Artagnan series. This time around was no different but I think this time around I was able to identify more the areas that made the book not as strong.

First of all in terms of confusion, I have to admit that when it comes to kings and queens in Europe I just immediately get confused. The book didn't help in that there are four Henry's so it took a least through part 1 to finally figure out who is who. I don't think that is Dumas fault. Also, I took the time to look up the St. Barthelemy Massacre to make sure I understood what was happening historically especially since Dumas assumes (appropriately for French people born in France, not the Americanized French savage that I am, lol) that everyone is familiar with the event. Even my mom was like, you don't this? So once I rearead the first part a few times, and really got my history down I was able to finally enjoy the story more.

But overall I think what makes this book weaker is that it lacks two things the other two series has:
Diversity in setting
Humor

What I love about Dumas other than his fantastic plots and writing is his humor. His characters never fail to make me laugh but this particular book was so serious that it didn't have much room for humor which is something I missed greatly. Only one character, Coconnas was available to fill in the role but he was a bit too cliche in his humor that, while funny, I missed the charm of Dumas other characters. Secondly, the setting. The majority of the book takes place within the confines of the Louvre (back in the 1500s when it was a castle, not a museum), which creates a sense of confinement that makes the comings and goings of all the characters even more claustrophobic. When the characters finally went into different settings it allowed for the plot to get a breath of fresh air and focus on a few characters instead of all the characters at once.

Still enjoyed this one though; am glad to have reread it and am looking forward to the next two books in the series which I will focus on in 2026.