Novels Similar to The Count of Monte Cristo

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The 1996 translation by Robin Buss, published by Penguin Classics, is faithful to the original, and is the edition of choice if you want to read Dumas' original story.

Yes, I've read Robin Buss' translation of The Count of Monte Cristo. Your post made me think that he also translated The Three Musketeers, but when I searched I found that the most recent (2006) translation of this book is by Richard Pevear, so I think I'll read that edition.

Les Trois Mousquetaires' ' was translated into three English versions by 1846. One of these, by William Barrow (1817-1877), is still in print and fairly faithful to the original, available in the Oxford World's Classics 1999 edition. To conform to 19th-century English standards, all of the explicit and many of the implicit references to sexuality were removed, adversely affecting the readability of several scenes, such as the scenes between d'Artagnan and Milady.

The most recent and now standard English translation is by Richard Pevear (2006), who in his introduction notes that most of the modern translations available today are "textbook examples of bad translation practices" which "give their readers an extremely distorted notion of Dumas' writing."

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Yes, I'm well aware that the books are very long. If I read it, I'll just read The Three Musketeers.

For what it's worth, I liked The Three Musketeers, but I adored the follow-ups - I read Ten Years Later (we had in three volumes of ~800 pages each) multiple times from cover to cover in kindergarten (yeah, I know) and finally locating and buying a second-hand copy of Twenty Years After was one of the highlights of my teenage years - I didn't have to get the library copy out every year any more (plus the copy our library had missed some pages).

I liked them all as a grown-up, too (and I'm under no illusion that I actually understood everything as a six-year-old, but there was enough exciting stuff going on to keep me more than happy!), but the entire series basically defined my childhood - I mostly played musketeers, Athos was my first love (fictional or otherwise), and I've met older relatives / friends of relatives who go "OH! I remember you! you were that little girl who always had her nose stuck in one of those really thick books".

Anyway, what I'm basically saying that if you do read The Three Musketeers, and like it even a little, I strongly recommend at least reading Twenty Years After, too - that one, to me, had the best balance of adventure and politics. As much as I loved Ten Years Later, that's heavier on the court intrigue and politics than on action/adventure, compared to the earlier books.

But, once again, I can't say anything about the quality of any of the English translations out there, and any enjoyment of those books will probably depend on the writing/translation/interpretation as well as on the actual content.

[samhy]

Have you read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo?

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

For what it's worth, I liked The Three Musketeers, but I adored the follow-ups - I read Ten Years Later (we had in three volumes of ~800 pages each) multiple times from cover to cover in kindergarten (yeah, I know) and finally locating and buying a second-hand copy of Twenty Years After was one of the highlights of my teenage years - I didn't have to get the library copy out every year any more (plus the copy our library had missed some pages).

Wait. What?? Did I read this wrong. You read an Alexandre Dumas novel in KG??


Anyway, lol. If I enjoyed The Three Musketeers I may read the other books in the series.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by samhy

Have you read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo?

No, I haven't. I just watched the cartoon

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Wait. What?? Did I read this wrong. You read an Alexandre Dumas novel in KG??


Anyway, lol. If I enjoyed The Three Musketeers I may read the other books in the series.

The whole of the "D'Artagnan Romances" is available in the MR library. Do a library search under that name to find them. It's in four volumes (of which "The Three Musketeers" is the first).

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by BenG

If you like The Three Musketeers I would recommend Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste books. They recount the adventures of a Spanish swordsman living in the 17th century in the service of King Philip IV, during the Eighty Years War. It even has some of the same historical characters like the Duke of Buckingham. It's Spanish rather than French swashbuckling.

There are six or seven books in the series.
http://www.amazon.com/Captain-Alatri...3797964&sr=1-6

+1 for the Captain Alatriste series!

[Yapyap]

This thread is giving me lots of new books to consider, too! Oddly enough, I've never actually read The Count of Monte Cristo. I wonder if it's a case of loving an author's one work so much that I don't even desire to read anything else as it can't possibly be that good... Hmm. Worth thinking about!

Originally Posted by Gazella

Wait. What?? Did I read this wrong. You read an Alexandre Dumas novel in KG??

I read before kindergarten - thanks to my grandma taking the time to teach me the letters before I was two, I was reading books (as in books with words ) on my own at three and had moved on to thick tomes - as long as they were exciting! - by four or five.

It's slightly unusual but not very - I don't have any scientific data to back this up with, but I have a feeling it's easier for kids to learn to read at a younger age in more or less fully phonetic languages (compared to, say, English, which looks, in comparison, enormously complicated to first learn to read in). Certainly everyone I knew as a child could read before school (and did read, and we never had the sort of "you're too young for this; go read something easier" attitude that seems to be common in some places, so kids read anything from basic chapter books to grown-up books as long as they were full of adventure and excitement).

[dreams]

I loved The Three Musketeers and my first introduction to it was The Windermere series of The Three Musketeers published by Rand McNally & Company, 1923, Hardcover, Milo Winter (illustrator), Translated and arranged by Philip Schuyler Allen, The University of Chicago - The seven color illustrations are beautiful.

This edition was specifically for children, even though it is still over 500 pages of text and the preface does state that the translator did remove parts that were "slightly soiling or unclean, and which seemed to dim the pure brightness of the rest of the book."

It was pure adventure and my brothers and I would check it out from the library often (along with the Marco Polo one). We finally were able to own it, when the library sold off very, old books and we were able to get one that still has a check out card from 1948. I still have the book, although I haven't reread it in many years. I have read other versions of which is one by HarryT in our library here - Dumas, Alexandre: D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1. v2, 22 Aug 2008

The Man in the Iron Mask (the last of the story) was also a favorite one of mine and I have that in a stand alone hardback book. It is also available here in our library, again by HarryT, Dumas, Alexandre: D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 4. v2, 22 Aug 2008. To me, the books were always much, much better than any of the movie versions.

[Doitsu]

If you're looking for some light reading, check out Jules Verne's Mathias Sandorf, which he dedicated to Dumas.
It's full of typical Jules Verne tropes and often very predictable, but nevertheless an entertaining read.
(It's not quite as good as The Count of Monte Christo, though.)

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

This thread is giving me lots of new books to consider, too! Oddly enough, I've never actually read The Count of Monte Cristo. I wonder if it's a case of loving an author's one work so much that I don't even desire to read anything else as it can't possibly be that good... Hmm. Worth thinking about!

Yes! Please read The Count of Monte Cristo. It's a really amazing novel. I never thought I would read a book that great. A true example of excellent literature.

If you decide to read it, go for Robin Buss' translation for Penguin Classics.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Gazella

If you decide to read it, go for Robin Buss' translation for Penguin Classics.

Definitely. It's well worth paying for. Way, way better (and much more faithful to the original) than the public domain 1846 translation.

[Gazella]

I went to the bookstore earlier today and got two books. The Penguin Classics edition of Les Misérables, translated by Norman Denny. And also The Three Musketeers since it has been recommended to me in this thread a lot. I've never seen a Classic novel with a cover like this. To be honest, I don't really like those illustrations on the jacket cover of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. If anyone's interested, it's by Tom Gauld, a Scottish illustrator. This was the only edition available in the bookstore.

[HarryT]

Wow - that is a strange cover! Do I understand correctly that you bought those papery things, rather than ebooks?

[Gronk]

Originally Posted by Gazella

I went to the bookstore earlier today and got two books. The Penguin Classics edition of Les Misérables, translated by Norman Denny. And also The Three Musketeers since it has been recommended to me in this thread a lot. I've never seen a Classic novel with a cover like this. To be honest, I don't really like those illustrations on the jacket cover of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. If anyone's interested, it's by Tom Gauld, a Scottish illustrator. This was the only edition available in the bookstore.

I found the Denny translation on Amazon yesterday for $2.99 and got it for when I reread it.