Book review of The Three Musketeers.docx

1、Book review of The Three MusketeersBook review of The Three MusketeersIntroduction of Alexandre Dumas:Alexandre Dumas (born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas, pre, was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure. Tr

2、anslated into nearly 100 languages, these have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later were originally published as serials. His

3、 novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005, becoming a bestseller. It was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier.Prolific in sev

4、eral genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totaled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Thtre Historique in Paris.Born and raised in poverty, as his fa

5、ther died when he was four, Dumas faced discrimination because of his ethnic African ancestry, although he was three-quarters French. Through his father, who was born in Saint-Domingue, he was the grandson of a French nobleman and a black slave. His mother was French. As a young man, Dumas aristocra

6、tic rank helped him acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orlans.With the election of Louis-Napolon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favor, and left France for Belgium. After several years, he moved on to Russia for a few years, before going to Italy. In 1861 he founded and published the newsp

7、aper, L Indipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864 he returned to Paris.Married, Dumas also had numerous affairs, said to total 40. He was known to have at least four illegitimate or natural children, including a boy named Alexandre Dumas after him. This son became a succe

8、ssful novelist and playwright, and was known as Alexandre Dumas, fils (son), while the elder Dumas became conventionally known in French as Alexandre Dumas, pre (father). Among his affairs, in 1866 Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress then at the height of her career and less t

9、han half his age. Twentieth-century scholars have found that Dumas fathered another three natural children.Early lifeDumas Davy de la Pailleterie (later known as Alexandre Dumas) was born in Villers-Cotterts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France. He had an older sister, Marie-Alexandrine (b

10、. before 1798). Their father was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the mixed-race son of the marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and gnral commissaire in the artillery of the colony, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, a slave who

11、was of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa (although the fact that she had a French surname probably means that she was Creole), nor is it known from which African people her ancestors came. Brought back to France by his father, Thomas-Alexand

12、re was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. He married Marie-Louise lisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper. He took his mothers name, Dumas, after a break with his father. Thomas-Alexandre was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first of Afro-Antilles orig

13、in to reach that rank in the French army. He served with distinction in the French Revolutionary Wars. Although a general under Bonaparte in the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, Thomas-Alexandre had fallen out of favor by 1800 and requested leave to return to France. On his return, his ship had to pu

14、t in to Sicily, where he and others were held as prisoners of war. During his two-year imprisonment, his health was ruined. At the time of Alexandres birth, his father was impoverished.The father died of cancer in 1806 when Alexandre was four. His widowed mother could not provide her son with much o

15、f an education, but Dumas read everything he could. His mothers stories of his fathers bravery during the campaigns of the Revolutionary Wars inspired the boys vivid imagination. Although poor, the family had their fathers distinguished reputation and aristocratic rank. In 1822, after the restoratio

16、n of the monarchy, 20-year old Alexandre moved to Paris. He acquired a position at the Palais Royal in the office of Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orlans.CareerWhile working for Louis-Philippe, Dumas began writing articles for magazines and plays for the theatre. As an adult, he used his slave grandmothers surname of Dumas, as his father had as an adult. His first play, Henry III and His Courts, produced in 1829 when he was 27 years old, met with acclai