Product Description

Twenty Years After (1845), the sequel to The Three Musketeers, is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure. Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil. In his Introduction to this edition David Coward sets both the author and his exciting tale in their historical and cultural contexts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #318340 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 880 pages

Customer Reviews

D'Artangan and Co. clash into battle once again!
I picked up 20yrsAfter with mixed feelings. The first book - The Three Musketeers - had made such a massive impact on me, that I was a little worried how the mighty quartet would fare twenty years down the line, and if there would be such a parrllel of greatness I felt from reading the first. I need not have worried - Twenty Years After is as brillant and gripping as The Three Musketeers - if not better. The beginning sets the scene - France is in a terrible state, with civil war around the corner. In England, Charles I is in danger of losing the throne of his forefathers to a brewers son (a brooding general by the name of Cromwell), and for their sins God has sent Milady's son after D'Artangan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. If you love history as it is, just left the way it happened, then step back from this novel. But Dumas loved history as well as fabled fantasy - as he wrote in his Memoirs - "I perceived a living complete world buried twelve centuries deep in the shadowy abyss of the past... I realized that the past held more than the future..." Twenty Years After is part of Dumas' annus mirabilis writing flood of 1844-1854, but a beautiful and profound, and gripping chapter that should not be over looked as it so often is.

An excellent sequel
As a general rule sequels are not as good as the original. And while that holds true for the musketeers this book comes very close indeed to being as good and in some ways is better. The only reason why I personally feel that The Three Musketeers is still a better book is that this does have a few longueurs whereas the original has none.

Once again the plot has a grounding in history, although those who know the period well may wish to cringe with the liberties taken by Dumas. However if you can suspend your disbelief there is a stunning story to be enjoyed. We rejoin our heroes twenty years down the line with the English monarchy on the verge of collapse and France on the brink of civil war. We also find that time has dispersed the loyalties of our once inseparable heroes.

This is a magnificent story of honour and friendship with some of the greatest scenes in literature. Scenes such as that under the scaffold or the trial, the absolution and the escape of the Duc de Beaufort are without equal.

wonderful story, ruined by incompetant editor
I won't go on about the story, suffice to say that yes it is as good as everyone else says.

My problem lies specifically with the Oxford World's Classics version of the text, which 'helpfully' chooses to add historical notes throughout the book. There I was - approaching the end of the story, happy to see that good had triumphed over evil once again, when I flicked to the back for one of the notes. To my horror, this note basically revealed the ending to the sequal to this book - The Man in the Iron Mask!

There was no reason to do this, it had nothing to do with the point being made, and completely overshadowed the story I was reading. What's more, I'm not sure how I can finish reading the trilogy with this knowledge. I don't know how this note was ever published, and I sincerely hope the person responsible has been reprimanded.

In short - please read Twenty Years After, but please do not read this version!