Twenty Years After: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers

by Alexandre Dumas

Overview

A new translation of Dumas’s rousing sequel to The Three Musketeers, picking up twenty years after the conclusion of that classic novel and continuing the adventures of the valiant d’Artagnan and his three loyal friends.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643132020
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	520,088
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

One of the most famous French writers of the nineteenth century, Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) first achieved success in the literary world as a playwright, before turning his hand to writing novels. In two years from 1844 to 1845, he published two enormous books, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. Both novels have sold millions of copies worldwide.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

I Richelieu's Ghost 3

II A Night Patrol 14

III Two Old Enemies 23

IV Anne of Austria at Age Forty-Six 39

V Gascon and Italian 39

VI D'Artagnan at Age Forty 55

VII In Which d'Artagnan Is Confounded, but Receives Aid from an Unexpected Quarter 62

VIII The Differing Effects of a Half-Pistole When Bestowed upon a Beadle and a Choirboy 71

IX In Which D'Artagnan, Seeking Aramis, Finds Him on Planchet's Crupper 79

X The Abbé d'Herblay 87

XI Pas de Deux 96

XII Monsieur Porthos du Vallon de Bracieux de Pierrefonds 107

XIII In Which d'Artagnan Finds Porthos, and Learns That Money Can's Buy Happiness 113

XIV In Which We Find That, If Porthos Was Unhappy with His Situation, Mousqueton Was Not 123

XV Angelic Youth 130

XVI The Château de Bragelonne 140

XVII The Diplomacy of Athos 149

XVIII Monsieur de Beaufort 160

XIX How the Duc de Beaufort Amused Himself in the Dungeon of Vincennes 168

XX Grimaud Assumes His Post 178

XXI What Was Hidden in the Pies of Père Marteau's Successor 190

XXII An Adventure of Marie Michon 202

XXIII The Abbé Scarron 215

XXIV Saint-Denis 231

XXV One of the Duc de Beaufort's Forty Methods of Escape 241

XXVI A Timely Arrival and a Hasty Departure 252

XXVII The King's Highway 262

XXVIII Encounter 270

XXIX Good Councilor Broussel 279

XXX Four Old Friends Prepare for a Council 287

XXXI The Place Royale 296

XXXII The Oise Ferry 302

XXXIII Skirmish 311

XXXIV The Monk 318

XXXV The Absolution 330

XXXVI Grimaud Speaks 336

XXXVII The Eve of Battle 343

XXXVIII A Dinner as of Old 354

XXXIX The Letter from Charles I 364

XL The Letter from Cromwell 370

XLI Mazarin and Queen Henriette 378

XLII How Those in Need Sometimes Mistake Blind Luck for God's Will 384

XLIII The Uncle and the Nephew 393

XLIV Paternity 397

XLV Once More the Queen Asks for Aid 406

XLVI In Which It Is Shown That the First Impulse Is Always the Right One 419

Dramatis Personae: Historical Characters 427

Notes on the Text of Twenty Years After 441

Acknowledgments 457

Editorial Reviews

"Fans of The Three Musketeers can rejoice in the 800-page English translation of this largely forgotten sequel." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Newsday [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"Newly translated, a sequel to The Three Musketeers is as fresh as ever. In Lawrence Ellsworth’s excellent, compulsively readable translation, The Red Sphinx is just the book to see you through the January doldrums. And maybe those of February, too." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Michael Dirda [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"The test of a translator is his capacity to capture this characteristic interplay of the heroic and the ribald; the sincere and the ironic; the vanished past and the approaching present. And at this task Ellsworth succeeds, giving us a Three Musketeers with more clarity, energy, and simplicity than any previous English edition." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Open Letters Review [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers serie

"A royal treat for fans of historical fiction. I am confident that librarians and English literature teachers around the world are leaping for joy at the publication of The Red Sphinx, and I join them in this excitement." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Bookreporter [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Dumas never stints the action, witty dialogue and surprising plot developments.

The Washington Post

Translator Lawrence Ellsworth has triumphantly returned to Dumas’s Musketeers cycle with this fresh translation of Twenty Years After. In addition to restoring Dumas’s snappy dialogue and snarky humor that the Victorian-era translation stifled, Ellsworth restores Chapter XXIX, which has been absent from nearly every British and American version since the nineteenth century. Eminently readable.

Historical Novels Review

"There is swash and buckle aplenty, and even plumage if that’s what does it for you. And it is great fun." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

The Spectator [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"As far as I can tell, Lawrence Ellsworth is responsible for one of the biggest literary projects happening right now in the English language. Ellsworth is working on a massive and daunting scale. He’s translating the entirety of Alexandre Dumas’s stories of The Three Musketeers (1844), all 1.5 million words of it. The third volume, Twenty Years After, appeared late last year. In Ellsworth’s hands, these stories of swashbuckling and all-for-one-and-one-for-all friendship feel new again. The Three Musketeers is an enormously entertaining tale for the ages."

The Brooklyn Rail

"The Red Sphinx sparkles and shines in a new translation. Races along with pointed humor and broad quips. Fun permeates this big book. The rest of this year's fiction will have to look sharp: An old master has just set the bar very, very high." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Christian Science Monitor [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers

"Newly translated, a sequel to The Three Musketeers is as fresh as ever. In Lawrence Ellsworth’s excellent, compulsively readable translation, The Red Sphinx is just the book to see you through the January doldrums. And maybe those of February, too." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Washington Post [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series] - Michael Dirda

"The Red Sphinx sparkles and shines in a new translation. Races along with pointed humor and broad quips. Fun permeates this big book. The rest of this year's fiction will have to look sharp: An old master has just set the bar very, very high."  [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Christian Science Monitor [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworths translations of Dumas's Musketeers

"Fans of The Three Musketeers can rejoice in the 800-page English translation of this largely forgotten sequel." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Newsday [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworths translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"There is swash and buckle aplenty, and even plumage if that’s what does it for you. And it is great fun." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

The Spectator [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworths translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"A royal treat for fans of historical fiction. I am confident that librarians and English literature teachers around the world are leaping for joy at the publication of The Red Sphinx, and I join them in this excitement." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Bookreporter [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworths translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"The test of a translator is his capacity to capture this characteristic interplay of the heroic and the ribald; the sincere and the ironic; the vanished past and the approaching present. And at this task Ellsworth succeeds, giving us a Three Musketeers with more clarity, energy, and simplicity than any previous English edition." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Open Letters Review [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworths translations of Dumas's Musketeers series

"Fans of The Three Musketeers can rejoice in the 800-page English translation of this largely forgotten sequel." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Newsday [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"The Red Sphinx sparkles and shines in a new translation. Races along with pointed humor and broad quips. Fun permeates this big book. The rest of this year's fiction will have to look sharp: An old master has just set the bar very, very high." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Christian Science Monitor [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers

"A royal treat for fans of historical fiction. I am confident that librarians and English literature teachers around the world are leaping for joy at the publication of The Red Sphinx, and I join them in this excitement." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Bookreporter [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

"The test of a translator is his capacity to capture this characteristic interplay of the heroic and the ribald; the sincere and the ironic; the vanished past and the approaching present. And at this task Ellsworth succeeds, giving us a Three Musketeers with more clarity, energy, and simplicity than any previous English edition." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

Open Letters Review [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers serie

"There is swash and buckle aplenty, and even plumage if that’s what does it for you. And it is great fun." [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]

The Spectator [Praise for Lawrence Ellsworth’s translations of Dumas's Musketeers series]