The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers (Les Trois mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexander Dumas. It recounts the adventures of a young man called D'Artagnan[?] after he leaves home to become a musketeer[?]. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

The story was first published in serial form in the magazine Le Siècle between March and July 1844. Dumas claimed it was based on manuscripts he had discovered in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Over the next six years the remaining parts of the story were published. The second part was Twenty Years After (serialized from January to August, 1845) covering the year 1648. Finally there was the substantial The Vicomte de Bragelonne (serialized from October 1847 to January 1850), covering events in the 1660s. In the English translations the final large volume is usually subdivided into three, four or even five individual books, of which the final volume, The Man in the Iron Mask is most well known.

The first novel covers the adventures of D'Artagnan and his friends in 1625, as they are involved in intrigues involving the weak King Louis XIII of France, his powerful and cunning advisor Cardinal Richelieu, the beautiful Queen Anne of Austria, her English lover, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, and the siege of the rebellious Huguenot city of La Rochelle.

The novel has been filmed many times. Notable film versions include:

• The Three Musketeers (1921) - a silent film version starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
• The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974) - a more-than-usually-complete adaptation directed by Richard Lester from a screenplay by George Macdonald Fraser[?]; starring Michael York[?] as D'Artagnan, Oliver Reed[?] as Athos, Frank Finlay[?] as Porthos, Richard Chamberlain[?] as Aramis, Charlton Heston as Richelieu, Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter, and Raquel Welch as Constance Bonacieux