Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweetpea
The older version uses words that have gone out of daily use. And those words I had to figure out by context...
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I've found that the B&N Classics annotated edition of TCOMC is pretty good for the context stuff, as they have footnotes which not only gloss some of the obscure terms, but they also explain things like relevant RL history that was happening at the time which Dumas was referring/alluding to in his story and point out in-story callbacks to earlier developments you might have forgotten or not grasped*.
If you'd like to try the B&N Classics editions out, you get access to a bunch of them free when you download the free NookStudy app, and there's a list of the "for-educational-purposes" freebie ones over at the
Free NookBooks Summary blog. TCOMC is not one of them, but they offer
The Three Musketeers.
If you're not in the US/Canada and don't want to go messing around with B&N's geo-restrictions and/or don't like supplying a credit card for the DRM on their free books just to try one, then a simple account signup will give you, un-geo-restricted and DRM-free and no CC info needed, copies of their B&N Classics versions of
Pride & Prejudice,
Dracula, and
Little Women so you can have a look at what the series is like before you decide whether or not it's worth it to hoop-jump for the others.
Personally, I've always thought their annotations on P&P were especially well done and really helped with understanding the underlying stuff under the immediate obvious story.
* Disclaimer: I've only read about a few chapters in so I couldn't tell you if does that good a job for the entire book, or if some of the footnotes inadvertently spoiler you for other portions of the story.