D'Artagnan Romances

''The d'Artagnan Romances'' are a set of three novels by Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870), telling the story of the 17th-century musketeer d'Artagnan.

Dumas based the character and attributes of d'Artagnan on captain of musketeers Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan (''c.'' 1611–1673) and the portrayal was particularly indebted to d'Artagnan's semi-fictionalized memoirs as written 27 years after the hero's death by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (published 1700).

Books in the series

* ''The Three Musketeers'', set between 1625 and 1628; first published in serial form in the magazine ''Le Siècle'' between March and July 1844. Dumas claims in the foreword to have based it on manuscripts he had discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
* ''Twenty Years After'', set between 1648 and 1649; serialized from January to August 1845.
* '' The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later'', set between 1660 and 1673; serialized from October 1847 to January 1850. This vast novel has been split into three, four, or five volumes at various points.
** In the three-volume edition, the novels are titled ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'', ''Louise de la Vallière'' and ''The Man in the Iron Mask''.
** In the four-volume edition, the novels are titled ''The Vicomte de Bragelonne'', ''Ten Years Later'', ''Louise de la Vallière'' and ''The Man in the Iron Mask''.
** The old five-volume edition generally does not give titles to the smaller portions.
** The new five-volume edition gives new titles to 4 of the 5 smaller portions that are appropriate for the present times but as of December 2022, only the first volume has been published and the second volume is completed and published online in 30 serialised instalments and the online serialisation of the third volume is in progress.

New translations by Lawrence Ellsworth

# ''The Three Musketeers'' (February 2018)
#The Count of Moret; The Red Sphinx; or, Richelieu and his Rivals (unfinished) - (January 2017) - A large chapter called ''Les Habitués de l’Hotel de Rambouillet'' was omitted and left untranslated.
# ''The Dove'' (January 2017)
# ''Twenty Years After'', (2 volumes - October 2019), Blood Royale (November 2020)
# '' The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later'', (5 volumes - TBA)
##Between Two Kings (July 2021) - 50 chapters
##The Court of Daggers (19 April - 05 November 2022) - 44 chapters
##The Devil’s Dance (12 November 2022 - 2023) - 54 chapters
##The Shadow of the Bastille (2024) - 57 chapters
##The Man in the Iron Mask (2025) - 64 chapters

Other connected books

''The Red Sphinx'' is a sequel to ''The Three Musketeers'', written by Dumas but left incomplete after 75 chapters. It is a sequel in story terms, but none of the Musketeers appear; the story chiefly follows Cardinal Richelieu, Queen Anne, and King Louis XIII, and a new hero, the Count of Moret (based on the real-life Antoine de Moret). It was first published in France in 1946. A new English translation appeared in 2017 with a large chapter called ''Les Habitués de l’Hotel de Rambouillet'' omitted and left untranslated, in which the story was "completed" by the addition of Dumas's novella "The Dove".

Unofficial sequels

Several sequels have been written by other writers since Dumas's death.

*'' The Son of Porthos'' (1883) — written by Paul Mahalin, but published under the pen name "Alexandre Dumas" and still sold as such. d'Artagnan does not appear in this book.
*'' D'Artagnan Kingmaker'' (1900) — supposedly based on one of Dumas's plays.
*'' The King's Passport'' (1925) — by H. Bedford-Jones.
*'' D'Artagnan, the sequel to the Three Musketeers'' (1928) — by H. Bedford-Jones.

Other adaptations

Fantasy novelist Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances books have all used Dumas novels (particularly the d'Artagnan Romances) as their chief inspiration, recasting the plots of those novels to fit within Brust's established world of Dragaera. His 2020 novel ''The Baron of Magister Valley'' follows suit, using '' The Count of Monte Cristo'' as a starting point.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dartagnan Romances
Book series introduced in 1844
Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers
Cultural depictions of Charles de Batz de Castelmore d'Artagnan
Historical novels by series
Literary trilogies

cs:Tři mušketýři