Welcome to the
The current collection includes five classic works by Alexandre Dumas . Each one is available in a different set of translations as public domain availability of these texts varies with the language. In every site you'll find a chapter index with links to the text, links to a page with resources about the author and/or book and links to the beginnings of your current chapter in every other language available.
The titles so far are:
The Count of Montecristo by Alexandre Dumas. The quintessential story about reversals of fortune, revenge and redemption. Arguably the best loved work by Dumas, The Count of Montecristo is an entertaining and engaging page turner full of vivid charachters and a set of tightly entangled storylines. Like most of the author's works, the writing style is light, full of dialogues and mercifully short on descriptions.
The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas. I haven't read this one yet, but here's the links.
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. This is the one novel that disputes Montecristo's right to be regarded as Dumas' masterpiece. It's the first installment in the D'Artagnan Novels, and by far, the best known and more entertaining of them all. This book introduces the characters of D'Artagnan, and the Three Musketeers (Athos, Porthos and Aramis), the cloak and dagger dream team. While the bit of the storyline involving Buckingham and the Queen's diamonds is widely known through movie and other adaptations, the whole story is much more complex and twice as long.
Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas. There is a saying in the Spanish speaking world which goes something like The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After are not the same thing. It's meant to convey the same meaning as I'm too old for this sh... . That would be a fair assessment of this second D'Artagnan adventure: it no longer deals with unbreakable friendship and youthful exploits but with the compromised nature of mature friendship and the disillusions of becoming old without fulfilling yesterday's promises. It's also different from the first book in the way of not being so much of an entertaining reading.
The Vicomte de Bragelonne or Ten Years After. The last book in D'Artagnan's trilogy, and the longest by far. While it was meant by Dumas a a single novel it's very rarely treated as such in any language, because of its lenght and because of three distinct and very loosely related storylines: the monarchical restoration in England, the soap-operatic love triangle between Raul de Bragelonne, Mme de la V. and Louis XIV, and the fate of the king's imprisoned brother. Each segment is as long as any of the previous novels so they are usually published independently under varying titles ( i.e.: The Vicomte Bragelonne, Ten Years After, Louise de la V., The Man in the Iron Mask). Truth be told: this is a book with something for everyone but in order to find the stuff you would like, you will have to browse through hundreds of pages of stuff that only other people would like. If you want the cloak and dagger bit, skip the first two thirds --that's what movie adaptations have been doing with this book for decades.
Other titles will follow soon. Any comments and thoughts are welcome noscroll@ltm.atspace.com