It is 1648: the Red Sphinx, Cardinal Richelieu, is dead; the French regency is in the grip of rebellion; and in England, the monarchy of young Louis's cousin Charles I hangs by a thread. As d'Artagnan will find, these are problems that can't all be solved with a sword. In this third volume in the Musketeers cycle (originally published as the first part of the sequel Twenty Years After), these aging comrades must face the reality that sometimes, you fail—but it is in how they rise above it that we begin to see their true characters. Lawrence Ellsworth's new translation gives us the real excitement of Dumas's swashbuckling epic, abandoning the stodgy Victorian English of past versions to restore the author's dynamic style, sharp dialogue, and bawdy humor, while restoring a long-lost segment unavailable in English before.

"Ellsworth is responsible for one of the biggest literary projects happening right now in the English language … translating the entirety of Alexandre Dumas's stories of the Three Musketeers, all 1.5 million words of it…. In Ellsworth's hands, these stories of swashbuckling and all-for-one-and-one-for-all friendship feel new again."—Brooklyn Rail