Twenty Years After

Alexandre Dumas

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781643132020
• eBook ISBN: 9781643132792
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas's most famous and enduring novel, completed its serial publication in the summer of 1844, and by the time of its book publication at the end of that year readers were already demanding a sequel. They got it starting in January, 1845, when the first chapters of Twenty Years After began to appear—but it wasn't quite what they were expecting.When Twenty Years After opens it is 1648: the Red Sphinx, Cardinal Richelieu, is dead, France is ruled by a regency in the grip of civil war, and across the English Channel the monarchy of King Charles I hangs by a thread. As d'Artagnan will find, these are problems that can't be solved with a sword thrust. In Twenty Years After, the musketeers confront maturity and face its greatest challenge: sometimes, you fail. It's in how the four comrades respond to failure, and rise above it, that we begin to see the true characters of Dumas's great heroes.A true literary achievement, Twenty Years After is long overdue for a modern reassessment—and a new translation. As an added inducement to readers, Lawrence Ellsworth has discovered a "lost" chapter that was overlooked in the novel's original publication, and is included in none of the available English translations to date—until now.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• I Richelieu’s Ghost
• II A Night Patrol
• III Two Old Enemies
• IV Anne of Austria at Age Forty-Six
• V Gascon and Italian
• VI D’Artagnan at Age Forty
• VII In Which d’Artagnan Is Confounded, but Receives Aid from an Unexpected Quarter
• VIII The Differing Effects of a Half-Pistole When Bestowed upon a Beadle and a Choirboy
• IX In Which D’Artagnan, Seeking Aramis, Finds Him on Planchet’s Crupper
• X The Abbé d’Herblay
• XI Pas de Deux
• XII Monsieur Porthos du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds
• XIII In Which d’Artagnan Finds Porthos, and Learns That Money Can’t Buy Happiness
• XIV In Which We Find That, If Porthos Was Unhappy with His Situation, Mousqueton Was Not
• XV Angelic Youth
• XVI The Château de Bragelonne
• XVII The Diplomacy of Athos
• XVIII Monsieur de Beaufort
• XIX How the Duc de Beaufort Amused Himself in the Dungeon of Vincennes
• XX Grimaud Assumes His Post
• XXI What Was Hidden in the Pies of Père Marteau’s Successor
• XXII An Adventure of Marie Michon
• XXIII The Abbé Scarron
• XXIV Saint-Denis
• XXV One of the Duc de Beaufort’s Forty Methods of Escape
• XXVI A Timely Arrival and a Hasty Departure
• XXVII The King’s Highway
• XXVIII Encounter
• XXIX Good Councilor Broussel
• XXX Four Old Friends Prepare for a Council
• XXXI The Place Royale
• XXXII The Oise Ferry
• XXXIII Skirmish
• XXXIV The Monk
• XXXV The Absolution
• XXXVI Grimaud Speaks
• XXXVII The Eve of Battle
• XXXVIII A Dinner as of Old
• XXXIX The Letter from Charles I
• XL The Letter from Cromwell
• XLI Mazarin and Queen Henriette
• XLII How Those in Need Sometimes Mistake Blind Luck for God’s Will
• XLII The Uncle and the Nephew
• XLIV Paternity
• XLv Once More the Queen Asks for Aid
• XLVI In Which It Is Shown That the First Impulse Is Always the Right One
• Dramatis Personae
• Notes on the Text of Twenty Years After
• Acknowledgments
• Also by Lawrence Ellsworth
• copyright