 Welcome to the Agoura Café, usually videos of this sort, her title is like 14 things you didn't know about, such and such, but I think that's presumptuous, I don't know who you are, I don't know what you know about this. Besides, if you're interested enough in a topic to click on a video about it, there's a good chance you probably already know some of the info. So this is 14 things you may not have known about the three musketeers. So next up, Paris. Number one, the three musketeers was the first book in a trilogy. So the three musketeers came out in 1844, who was followed one year after by the sequel 20 years after 1845. And then over the period of 1847 to 1850. And the third novel these things originally came out in serialized form before they came out in standalone form. The third novel Le Vie Conte de Brasilon, or 10 years later, appeared. Although that's officially one book. It's so long that it's usually published in three volumes, but they are all officially one book so it's kind of a trilogy within a trilogy. So it's published in three volumes. The individual volumes are usually titled Le Vie Conte de Brasilon, Louise de la Valière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. Sometimes it's published in four volumes, in which case they generally redistributed the material among the four volumes and they add a volume. I think usually the second one titled 10 years later, borrowing the subtitle. And it is a new translation forthcoming that it looks like it's going to have different titles release some different titles but I'll have more about that in a bit. So anyway, there's a, you know, there are three books of this and the third book is actually three books. There's a lot of musketeers. Second, why the first book is titled the three musketeers rather than the four musketeers. The fact that the book actually has four protagonists, D'Artagnan, Autos, Portos and Aramis, is well known enough that I didn't include it as one of the facts you may not have known. Excuse me, but there's four of us. But you may not know why it's called the four musketeers, the three musketeers rather than the four musketeers, given that there are four protagonists. The answer is that D'Artagnan does not actually become a musketeer until the end of the book. He's just hanging out with the three musketeers, hoping to become a musketeer, he doesn't actually end up being one until the end. By the end of it he is so that the later, you know, the, so the whole series should not be called the three musketeers although it sometimes is because really the whole series is about four musketeers but the book is about three. I wonder, given that D'Artagnan is not one of the three musketeers, why, you know, why make the title of the three musketeers rather than say D'Artagnan and the three musketeers, particularly given that D'Artagnan is the main character. Well, I don't know the answer to that for sure, but I suspect it's precisely because D'Artagnan is the main character that we're seeing things from his point of view. So we're seeing this is his adventure with the three musketeers. It's kind of like, you know, Sherlock Holmes is the main character of the Hound of the Baskervilles or the adventure of Charles Augustus Milburton. The Hound of the Baskervilles is not the main character, Charles Augustus Milburton is not the main character, but those are the adventures that Sherlock Holmes had with those particular persons or organisms. And so, you know, I'm seeing it from his point of view, the same way that the first Indiana Jones movie was titled Raiders of the Lost Ark. They've since retitled it Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The original was just Raiders of the Lost Ark. And in fact, when the title credit appears on the screen, that's what you see. The three musketeers had a black or at least a biracial author. Alexander Dumas was the grandson of a Haitian slave. Well, nice and century France was not exactly a paradise of racial tolerance. It was obviously, you know, obviously pretty clearly superior to the US of the same era. And an author of visibly African ancestry was able to become Francis most commercially successful author in that era, maybe in any era. There's an anecdote that he once responded to a racial insult by saying, it is true, my father was a mulatto, my grandmother was a negress, and my great grandparents were monkeys. In short, sir, my pedigree begins where yours ends. Which reminds me a bit of of an exchange in Ruston's place here in the Begerac. Now the joke is a little bit uncomfortable because it may seem as though Dumas is endorsing his opponent's racism against his own ancestors, even if not against himself. I'm not sure that he is, but it's a little bit dodgy. But it's still, you know, it does. It was in the context of good comeback. In 1843 they do my release a novel, George, about a free man of black ancestry who leads a slave revolt in Mauritius and it's sort of his own personal response to the issues of slavery and racial prejudice that I'm surprised that as far as I know there hasn't been a movie version of that and I'm surprised that there hasn't been. Now again, the same worry that I raised before about his little, his little sero-no-esco response to the racist insult comes up here. The way that full-blooded blacks, that is blacks of unmixed African ancestry are treated in the book as a little bit racist. I mean, he's against enslaving them, that's, you know, yay, but they do seem to come across as rather inferior to the mixed-race protagonist is obviously based on either Dumas himself or perhaps his father. And some of those racist portrayals are kind of soft-pedaled in the most recent translation. But anyway, there it is. By the way, Dumas seems to have drawn from the same well as for this novel as for his Count of Monte Cristo, the following year. It was released the following year. I'm not sure how long it took him to write the Count of Monte Cristo. I would guess it was more than a year. It is a whacking long book. But anyway, in both of them, you know, a protagonist who's returning years later after having been wronged, coming back in a disguised identity and now with the more elite status to take revenge on those who wronged him earlier. And by the way, the Greshan time, but hey, this is the Greshan city here. I have a theory that the Count of Monte Cristo in turn inspired Victor Hugo's Limis Arab that Hugo took the two sides of the character of Edmond Dantes, the main character in Monte Carlo Monte Cristo. And he split them into two characters. So on the one hand, there's Dante's the former convict unjust to condemn to escape the eyes of the law and reinvent himself as a member of the elite. And that seems like he's the forerunner of Jean Valjean. In fact, Hugo even has Jean Valjean make an escape in a coffin, which is the same thing that Dante's does. I think Dante's version of that scene is actually more Hugo-esque than Hugo's is. On the other hand, Dante's the implacable pursuer of vengeance, who pursues the objects of his wrath through the course of the book until he eventually learns to forswear vengeance at the end, is the forerunner not of Valjean, but of Javert. So in effect, Hugo took the main character of the Count of Monte Cristo, split them into two and had one of them spend their novel chasing the other one, which is a clever idea. Number four, Dumas wrote the Musketeers series with a co-author. A lot of Dumas books were written with co-authors whose names never appear on the covers. And often they don't appear inside either. These are relegated to brief asides and introductions or other editorial material, or often they're just omitted entirely. For example, the aforementioned novel George was co-authored with Jean-Pierre Félicien-Marie, who never appears on the covers or on the title pages. And as of the date of this video, May 2021, his name was not mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the novel George. Dumas most important collaborator was Auguste Maquet. I spelled his name there on the screen for you so that you won't mistake him for one of my clan sisters. Maquet was the co-author of a number of Dumas most celebrated works, including the Musketeers novels and the Count of Monte Cristo and a bunch of others. Now there's a lot of disagreement as to what the relative roles were of Dumas and Maquet in producing their co-authored works. So at one extreme, you've got the view that Maquet was merely a research assistant who provided sort of bare bones outline or historical material and so forth. And then Dumas came in and they completely made something out of it that wasn't there. At the other end of the other extreme, there's the view that Maquet was really a ghost writer. He really wrote it all. And Dumas just added his name to someone else's work. In 1845, a guy named Eugène de Mircourt, actually that wasn't his real name, but anyway, he published a book called Dumas novel factory, in which he claimed that Dumas just ran this big factory where other people would write these novels and you just stick his name on them. And also this book was filled with racially charged insults against Dumas. Now, I read a fair bit about this issue. I've read multiple Dumas biographies. I've read notes, the Oxford translations, which are really good notes. I've read Gustave Simon's histoire dune collaboration, which includes lots of documents relative to this and my judgment is that the truth is in between those two extremes. I don't think that Maquet was merely a research assistant. I don't think Maquet was the ghost writer that Dumas simply slapped his name onto the works out. Now I'm not saying that Dumas never did that with anyone. It's true that for example, one of Dumas last works, when both his energy and his finances were flagging, was two volume novel about Robin Hood. It's a streamlined translation of an English language novel by Pierce Egan the Younger, from 1840 titled Robin Hood and Little John. And Dumas didn't even do the translation. It looks like the translation was probably done by Dumas mistress Marie de Ferdinand, who used to write under the name of Victor Percival. Of course you didn't get credit for the translation either. But anyway, it's just, you know, it's just a translation somewhat abridged of this English language novel. Now, the edition that was published, admittedly doesn't say by Alexander Dumas, it says published by Alexander Dumas. But also bear in mind, this came out posthumously so we don't know how Dumas himself would have handled it, whether he would have claimed more credit than this edition implies or less credit than this edition implies. But anyway, it does say published by which was technically accurate. But given that it doesn't name the actual author. Anyone buying it would have assumed they wouldn't have known that published by had some special coded meaning, and they would have assumed that this was a novel by Dumas as many people have indeed assumed. In fact, this two volume Robin Hood novel by Dumas was later rendered back into English as a pair of novels the Prince of Thieves and Robin Hood the Outlaw. And the translator didn't realize that the work had started out in English to begin with and didn't need to be retranslated back in English. If you compare the retranslated Dumas version with the original Egan book. You know it's pretty clear that apart from some streamlining as I said they are essentially the same work. I'm using footnote a later Spanish translation was attributed, though this is no fault of Dumas either. A latest Spanish translation was attributed to Sir Walter Scott and the author of Ivanhoe. Sorry, as an analytic philosophers to call me author of Waverly. Some of you will get that. Anyway, as I said so this sort of thing did sometimes happen. But as far as I've been able to determine that is not descriptive of the Dumas Maché collaboration. There are some chapters that did not just stick his name on something Mckay wrote. Now, each of the extreme views is true of some chapters of the works that Dumas and Maché did together. And that fact is what has fueled each of the extreme views. There were cases there were chapters or passages where Dumas just did rubber stamp, but Maché had written. For example, there's a famous anecdote which as far as I can tell is true. That one time when Maché was challenged by someone to prove that he really was a collaborator with Dumas given that his name didn't appear on the covers. And so he was challenged to insert an awkwardly repetitive phrase like the word could I think it was the word could QE like seven times in a row in the short span. He was challenged to insert that into the next installment of the book he was writing with Dumas. And he did and Dumas approved it and it came out and proved his point. Now there are other chapters where Maché really did just provide a very sketchy sketchy framework or some historical details and Dumas did all the work of filling in the details and giving it life and color and so forth. There are other chapters that were in between there are other chapters that preserve more of a 50-50 collaboration. And so when you put it all together. I think that they were roughly equal collaborators in, you know, in the whole thing, even though the relative contributions varied from section to section but if you take the whole work. I think that they, you know, for any of the given works that they collaborated on I think that these were genuine collaborations. The reason that they were that they were published without his name. It wasn't something that Dumas insisted on although Dumas didn't fight against it particularly either. The publisher, Dumas was already famous, for works he'd done on his own. I mean he, it wasn't that he was, you know, some sort of hacker who was incapable of writing without a collaborator. He published a lot of stuff on his own. In fact, it plays mostly he'd gotten his start in drama rather than novels, but anyway, he was well known enough and popular enough figure that publishers figured that people would be more likely to buy at work by Alexander Dumas than a book by Alexander Dumas and Obvious McKay. And so that's why the name was left off. But I still think it's kind of a scandal that the, that McKay's name is still left off. Now it doesn't appear on the cover covers of the works they collaborated on doesn't occur on the title page often doesn't isn't even mentioned anywhere in the book. And, you know, I think it should be there. Now someone might say well look, my case right to be identified as the author was decided and rejected in 1858 lawsuit. But I don't think a 19th century French court case Cindy bearing on what a publisher's obligations are the moral obligations in particular. And whether this is a legal obligation or not, you know, that's not my concern but it seems like the moral obligation, whether to make a or to the publisher's readers. You know, if you're publishing something that's really by do mom, okay, you're saying it's by my case. Sorry, you're saying it's by do mom, and you're dropping my key through the memory hole. And that's an injustice both to the readers and to make a. Come on. I think that, you know, I'd be in favor of a kind of pressure movement to get publishers to put my case name back on the cover in general I think that when there works we have good reason to think we're co authored. The co authors names should go back on the covers I think Harriet Taylor's name should be on the cover of Mills on Liberty I think that rules Wilder Lane's name should be there along with her mother's on the little house books. In my opinion. A footnote to the soul discussion. In 2010, there was a French language movie about the Duma monkey collaboration called local Duma the other Duma. There were a couple of unfortunate things about that movie I haven't seen the movie. So I can't. I've known it somewhere but I haven't gotten around to seeing it. So I can't evaluate it as a general. But the two unfortunate things about it one is that the, the role of Duma is played by Genre de Padilla, who is not exactly a black actor. And the other unfortunate thing is that the English language version of the movie is instead of been called the other Duma is just called Duma. It just. Once again. Sorry, Maki, you know, kick you off the boat, knock you under the bus, whatever. I hope it's a movie that's about the Duma, Duma Maki collaboration. This drops monkey out of the title in the English language version. I mean, what, what the hell. So that's sort of, you know, so one. And justice to Duma and injustice to Maki all wrapped into one unfortunate package. Number five, the four musketeers were real people. So, you know, there are lots of characters in the musketeers novels that are obviously real historical figures you bet. The 13th and Louis the 14th of France you've got King Charles the first of England. You've got Louis de Valier, and, and of Austria, you've got Cardinal Russia and his successor Cardinal Mazurna, even the man on the iron mask whoever he really was there was a real man in the iron mask in fact I thought about making that one of the ones in the list but there's a number of YouTube videos about the man in the iron mask. I think it's, it's reasonably well known that that was a real person, even if we're not sure who he was, even though also the mask wasn't iron. It was cloth, which is fairly preferable. Anyway, so the novels are filled with actual historical figures. But a lot of people still may not know that the four protagonists were also real people. So the main character. Charles de Bastres, Castelmore, D'Artagnan, who lived from 1611 to 1673. He was the basis for D'Artagnan. He didn't do most of the things that he's potatoes doing in the book and most of those things weren't in the books most of those things were invented. But there were some, you know, some crucial bits that were accurate. He was an agent for Louis the 14th and Cardinal Mazarin. He did arrest Nicola Fouquet, Louis the 14th Finance Minister, whom Louis had him arrest for more or less the reasons that he really did. So the, you know, the novel back dates D'Artagnan a bit makes him a bit older so that he, he gets to have adventures under the reign of Louis the 13th and Cardinal Lucia as well. Whereas, in fact, D'Artagnan was significantly younger. And then I'll betray them that he wouldn't have been in a position to to do a lot of things in the first book. But anyway, anyway, D'Artagnan was a real character there really was a guy named that who did at least some of the things that are described in the books. And then after the other three, the titular three musketeers, autos, portos and other means do mob probably did not know their full names. In fact, he may have even thought the characters were fictional. I'll say more about that in a bit. At any rate, he treats the names autos, portos and other means as pseudonyms. In fact, the subtitle of the preface of the first book reads, in which it is established that, despite their names ending in us at East, the heroes of our story are in no way mythological. So he saw the forms that are names is looking like Greek names and reminiscent of Greek myth. And so he assumed that they were, whether he thought they were real people or not he assumed that these would would have been pseudonyms. And so he gave them real names, instead of the pseudonyms. But in fact, they did have real names, different from the ones he gave them and their real names were basically, you know, autos, portos and other means are pretty close. Autos, whom Douma calls, or Douma and McKay, so even I'm, even I'm falling into treating Douma as the sole author. Stop it. Douma and McKay call him the Conte l'affaire, but his real name was Armand, Seigneur de Siégh, and Datos, and Dottavier. As for portos, Douma and McKay make his real name, Baron du Valon de Brassille de Pierre-Fonds, but his real name was Exact Porto, no S. And finally, Aramis, whom Douma and McKay give the real name, René Derbley, his real name in fact was Henri D'Aramis. So they really were named Autos, Porto and Aramis. And however, unlike Dottavier, there's no reason to think that they did any substantial portion of the things that Douma and McKay have to do in the books. Douma and McKay insert these four characters into various real life historical events that they were not actually involved in and make them sort of central to those events, which is how this sort of fiction works. Now if you're interested in the four real figures, there's a book by Cary Monde, Monde, Monde, I'm not sure you pronounce it, and Phil Nansen, called The Four Musketeers, The True Story of Dottagnan, Autos, Portos and Aramis. And this book also has some nice photos of some of the locations, like the estates where these characters lived and so on. That's a nice book. I did notice a couple of errors in it and I always worry when I notice a couple of errors in historical work, I always worry other ones are not noticing. So for example, they cite the Robin Hood novel as one of Douma's works. They're well of McKay. They're not wrong about that. But when it comes to the Robin Hood novel, they cite that as one of Douma's works without seemingly being aware that Douma had pretty much nothing to do with that book. Six, the real Dottagnan was kind of a bad guy. So if you look at what Dottagnan did, well, first of all, of course, there's the arrest of Nicolas Fouquet, the thing for which historically he's most famous. And that's a big dodgy. It's very far from clear that Fouquet was guilty of the things that Louis accused him of. And his arrest and imprisonment do not seem to have really lived up to the standards of procedural justice, even those of the era. Also, the real Dottagnan, and this is something that doesn't get as much play in the books, he helped put down rebellions of impoverished peasants who'd been driven to desperation by high royal taxes. He also participated in the sneak attack that Louis XIV carried out on the province of France, Quoté, which was an independent province at the time. At the time when Louis's ambassadors were there, longing it with peace talks and negotiations, you know, hi, we're here to, you know, to make peace and and work out. They weren't at war with them, but it wasn't as yet. They were, it was just to talk to them how they're going to, you know, successfully maintain the neutrality that François Quoté wanted to have in battles between France and its neighbors. In the middle of these peace talks, Louis XIV just pulls a sneak attack and conquers the place. So that he could then use it as a bargaining chip to trade for peace with, was it England he was fighting? Probably, when in doubt, it's England. And that's, so that's kind of dodgy too. Dr. Tanyang was one of the leaders of the troops in that little adventure. Now, you might say to me, Oh, Roderick, you are judging the past by modern standards. Dr. Tanyang would not have thought that he could have questioned the authority of the king. He would have, you know, he would have thought that the word of the king was law. And, you know, so we shouldn't, we shouldn't judge him by our modern anti-monarchical standards. Well, first of all, it's wrong philosophically because moral relativism is bullshit. But that would be another video and we'll get into it. But it's also historically wrong. It's not the case that the idea that royal authority was unjustified was somehow an idea inaccessible to 17th century. Obviously, the people who were who were rebelling, these impoverished peasants who were rebelling against the king, obviously they thought rebellion against the king was justified. So you can't say, oh, well, no one thought that. And also, you know, we go to the level of scholars. You know, in France, you have the monarch amongst which are a bunch of a fridge scholars who were defending resistance to royal authority is across the channel during the same period 1617 centuries. So you've got John Milton with his tenure of Kings and magistrates, you've got Richard Overton with his arrow against all tyrants and tyranny, you got people like John Lilburn and William Wall one and so forth. So the, the question of the legitimacy of royal authority was a live issue at the time. There were people who were who were writing against the authority of Kings. They were fighting up arms against the authority of Kings. So you get to say, Oh, well, back then no one would have dreamed of questioning the story of the game. There was a real disagreement and D'Artagnan was on the wrong side of it. It is true in D'Artagnan's behalf that a number of historical sources report that the real life D'Artagnan treated the people who came under his people they became captives of his or whatever he treated them with more respect and less cruelty than a lot of other people did. Okay, cool, great for him. But it doesn't get you off the hook. You know, if the mugger grabs my wallet but doesn't beat me up is better than the mugger grabs my wallet and also beats me up, but still not going to praise him as some kind of a rogue figure. Seven. The three musketeers was based on the previous historical novel by somebody else. So in 1700. This guy named Cassian to cook tea to send us who published lots of historical novels generally in the form of of fake memoirs published memoirs and Mr. D'Artagnan, this master three volume work. I have the this old English language version of beautiful bound thing. And I have here. See the first page of it. You touch on y'all and I'll find it when I when I edit this video I'll find a picture of this online because I've seen it online and we will see it better than this. But anyway, the first the first volume the pages have been cut the second and third volumes of pages are uncut so someone never got whoever previously owned this never got their way past the first volume. This came to me in. I still have the the sheet from the bookseller that I got it from in the mail Bristow and Garland antiquarian and secondhand booksellers. Six King Edwards court, Abby walk Shaftesbury Dorset. Anyway, it's a very, very well preserved. Well, from the fact that obviously you call it used but the, you know, the second and third volumes were not really used in the sense of don't ever read them. It's a very nice condition. I haven't read the meter obviously pages are uncut, but I'd like to get around reading that work at some point. Anyway, so this was a fictionalized memoir of D'Artagnan it was written as it was as though D'Artagnan was writing his autobiography. And then the three musketeers, the novel by do mom not K sites this these memoirs as though they were genuine treats that as a source for the novel alongside another set of memoirs and entirely nonexistent set of memoirs by autos. So it's a cute little, what the what the ninth floor folks call intertextuality here. You know, so I mean do mom my case certainly knew that these were not real memoirs. Now we have no evidence of whether our four protagonists were friends in real life, but it was. It was not do mom my cave but rather continue to send us who first came up with the idea of making autos proctos and alimies into an inseparable brotherhood. And have them join up with D'Artagnan. And this idea of these these three guys with the Greek sounding endings to their names. Do mom my key found in putty to the sunglasses book he didn't invent that they may have thought that unlike D'Artagnan who they certainly knew was a real person, they may have thought that autos proctos and alimies were sunglasses invention. But they weren't do mom my key also borrowed more broadly from putty to sundress. For example, one of the chief antagonists in the three musketeers is the control for was actually drawn not from the doubt on your memoirs but from another one of putty to sunglasses novels the memoirs of the control for likewise another one of the chief antagonists of the musketeers. This is based partly on the character in the memoirs of Mr. D'Artagnan, which he's also referred to as the lady, but also partly on the character in one of putty to sunglasses other novels. So, this was an important source for for them. And it's out that most of the events that do mom my key borrow from from these fake memoirs of Dr. Daniel are borrowed from the first volume. And so it's possible that they, the do mom my key like the owners of my addition, former owners of my addition, only read the first volume and getting these farther decided to be after that they could make it up on their own. But anyway, that's seventh. Fact you may not have known eight. No good modern translation of the whole musketeers trilogy exists as yet. Now there are good translations of the first book I think Richard Paveer is probably one of the best. By the way, the one of the best known covers of previous book has what has a cover that has a cover that makes it look as though it's a graphic novel but it's not the it's a comfortable cover but the inside is a straight text but anyway, Richard Paveer's book that's probably the best translation of the first book in the series. But as of the date of this video, may 2021. There is no really good translation of the entire series. Like, you know, some of two miles other works, for example, account of money crystal has a has a good translation. I recommend the Robin bus translation from Penguin. If you are looking for a good translation of that. But anyway, that may be but that may be about change. That's all mentioned a bit. I want to quote a bit from Richard Paveer's introduction to his translation. So quote, it was translated into most European languages soon after it was published. Three English versions appeared in 1846. One of these versions by William Barrow is still available in the Oxford world's classics. But in faithful translation, following the original almost word for word, it's one major flaw is due, I assume, not to the translator, but to the greater delicacy of English manners at that time. All of the explicit and many of the implicit references to sexuality and the human body matters which do my dealt with rather frankly, asterisk do my and my gay. Have been removed. That makes the rendering of certain scenes between that on your and my lady, for instance, strangely vague. Unfortunately, some of the more recent English versions, including those most widely available today, our textbook examples of bad times translation practice and give the readers an extremely distorted notion of the most writing. Perhaps there seem to have made it a rule to look at the original and do otherwise, as though following following do my carefully would infringe upon their own creativity. We want to express our individuality to on another man's work. What the heck. Their versions are verbose, paraphrastic and dull. One adds a sort of blustery Colonel blimp humor that corresponds to nothing in the French. And another has the habit of saying elaborately twice would do my says simply once and quote. Yeah, and I think, here's right most of the existing modern translations are not great. And the Oxford translations. He's just talking about translation of the first book, but the Oxford World's classics translations of the entire series. They date from between 1846 and 1856 and they are, you know, they're faithful but they're old fashioned. The language is a bit archaic, and they're a bit skittish about sexuality. Now I have to say the Oxford World's classics traditions are really good for their notes. And if when you're reading a, if you're even reading a newer translation is not a bad idea to get your hands on the Oxford tradition and look at the notes that really, really useful notes. Okay, now remember I said this might be about to change. Lawrence Ellsworth has undertaken to translate the entire series in a modern modern translations and for what I can tell. I haven't, I can't say I've made a systematic comparison before I can tell from looking into them seems like he's doing a good job. The, so he's, he's come up with the passage of first book, The Three Musketeers. The second book. He's broken into two, the book 20 years after he's broken into two volumes. I'll be trying to really milk this, this series as we'll see but I broke the second book into two volumes the first one is also called 20 years after. But the second one is called Blood Royal. And then later this year, the later this year the first of a projected for volume version of the content of Brazil on this coming out and the first volume is called between two kings which is a new title, unique to Ellsworth. What he's going to call the next three I don't know. So, he's going to have, you know, he's going to have seven volumes in. And so far I think that only available in hardback if I'm right about that. But anyway, so it looks like we are on the way to having a decent translation of the whole series. Nine. There's a fourth book in the Musketeers trilogy. So in 1865, Dumas began writing and this time it really is Dumas. He looks like he didn't have help from any collaborator at this time. He began writing a novel titled Le Conte de Moret or the Red Sphinx. And you might think that, you know, the or means that the Red Sphinx is Le Conte de Moret, but it's not. There are two different characters. Le Conte de Moret is one character, a real person historically by the way. And the Red Sphinx is our old friend, Cardinal Ritia, who's one of the main characters in The Three Musketeers. Are you our Cardinal, Armand Du Plessis de Richner, First Minister of Louis XIII? Oui. And this book has been described as a fourth Musketeer's novel. Excuse me, but there's four of us. And at least it is sort of a fourth Musketeer's novel. I say sort of because the four Musketeers do not actually appear in it. But Le Conte de Moret follows on chronologically, fairly directly from the first novel, and features many of the same historical figures, most notably, as I mentioned, Ritia, the subtitular Red Sphinx. And the characters are portrayed in ways that are continuous with their portrayal of the Musketeer's novel. So you could say that Le Conte de Moret is a novel that shares the same fictionalized historical universe with the other ones. And so I think that it's a little bit misleading to call it a sequel to The Three Musketeers, which is what it's been called. But nevertheless, I think it's fair enough to make it part of the same series. If you're reading the whole series, I would recommend throwing that one in there. Unfortunately, Dumas never finished Le Conte de Moret, but he did have an earlier short story dating back from 1851 called The Dove. And the Dove covered some of the same material as what the ending of Le Conte de Moret would have covered. My friend Lauren Sellsworth, the same one who's doing this massive seven-volume translation of the Musketeer series, is really an eight-volume series because he has taken Le Conte de Moret and The Dove, and glued them together to make one whole novel. It's not quite seamless. But still, The Dove does resolve a number of the plot threads that get raised in Le Conte de Moret. And he's called the whole book The Red Sphinx, just borrowing the subtitle of one of the two things that's going together as the title for the whole thing. And so, yeah, I think he built it as a sequel to The Three Musketeers. Again, I think it's somewhat misleading advertising. And of course, all the other editions of his translations, of which are books that were co-authored by McKay, I'll just say Dumas on the cover, not McKay. So I think that's also misleading. Justice for McKay, goddammit, but anyway. I have one other coral with Elzworth's translation of the Red Sphinx and the coral belt one. I will simply read to you from his introduction. One of the differences with my coral is he's talking about the differences between Dumas original manuscript and the version that was published. And he says, the manuscript contained an entire chapter emitted from the published version. This missing chapter titled Les Apitués de l'Hôtel de Rambouillet, when quickly sees why it was emitted. And it is no more than 3500 words about the amusing eccentricities of certain members of the Rambouillet household and social set. This series of anecdotes, mainly lifted from the historiette of Talmore de Réaux, are just the kind of juicy historical gossip that Dumas delighted in. And they add exactly nothing to the progress of the novel. In fact, they stopped the book dead in its tracks. I think Dumas, or his editor, Jules-Noviac, made the right decision in leaving this chapter out. And I followed their example for this edition of the Red Sphinx. Well, I'd rather like to know whether the decision to exclude that chapter from the final published edition was that of Dumas or his editor, because if it was the editor. I think that the chapter is integrally part of the novel as Dumas intended. It should have been left in. I don't think it's part of a translator's job to decide, oh, this chapter slows down the actions, so I'm going to omit it. One reader's plot slowing the Gresh may be another reader's delight. Anyway, I think it's dereliction of translatorial duty to impose one's own judgment there and in place of the author. And even if Dumas did decide to cut it out, I would at least have included it in an appendix. So I'm a little bit grumpy about that. So when I look at this translation mailsworth, I can still ask, you know, are you here that should come or do we wait for another 10. Dumas and McKay adapted the musketeers novels for the stage. In 1845, Dumas and McKay adapted the second book, 20 years after, as a play, which they gave the name the musketeers. They didn't call it the three musketeers because they're, you know, by this time Dr. was a musketeers they just thought the musketeers. But in 1949, they went back and adapted the first book, the one we know as the three musketeers. That one they called la jeunesse de musketeer, which literally means the youth of the musketeers. But that sounds a bit awkward in English. In English, you'd naturally translate it either the musketeers in youth or the young musketeers probably the young musketeers would be the easiest way to translate that. Now, Mond and Nansen are only aware of the first two plays that remember I said that there was a couple of errors in in their book. This is the other one, Robin Hood was one, this is the other. But there was a third one in 1861, Dumas, and I haven't been able to determine whether this was also with McKay or whether he did this on his own. By the way, I should mention that the first play is one of the few cases where Dumas actually publicly credited McKay as co-author and gave him credit publicly, which he seems to have treated as an act of, he seems to have regarded as an act of overwhelming generosity in his own part. Though I would say it was no more than McKay's do. But anyway, the third, the third play Dumas may have done on his own. And the third play was called The Prisoner of the Bastille, or the end of the musketeers. And it's based on a portion of the third novel. So it would be called The Brushelon. Because remember, that novel is a massive thing. As you might guess from the title, if you know anything about the story, it gets the man in the iron mask part of the story. Dumas had planned and perhaps had begun some dramatic adaptations of more parts of the, of the final novel, but they were never finished and things are not clear whether it looks like they don't even still exist. So we have corresponding to the trilogy of novels, there is a trilogy of plays. Are there translations of those? Well, yes, are there good translations of those? Not so much. So Frank J. Morlock has translated all three of the, the young musketeers, the one that was, was performed second, but is based on the first book. Yes, there is the three musketeers, then the play The Musketeers, which was based on 20 years later, or based on 20 years after. Morlock published as The Musketeers 20 years later, after later. The Mahmouds used after for, for the 20 years and later for the 10 years, but anyway. And then the play The Prisoner of the Bastille or The End of the Musketeers, Morlock translated under the title The Last of the Three Musketeers. And of course, you know, by that point it shouldn't still be called the three musketeers and last of the three musketeers is a little bit misleading because it's not, it makes you think, oh well, you see what you're making, you know, you see how it's misleading. These plays are very, very literally translated, they're pretty faithful, but he's a, I have to say Morlock is not a great literary stylist. It's kind of very pedestrian thud, thud translation choices. I'll give you just one example. And one of the plays one of the main characters dies. And one of the other characters cries Malheur, which I would have translated as a lass, or if you want a translation that's a bit more modern and a bit freer than I would have translated what a tragedy or something like that. He translated as bad luck. Now out of context, bad luck is one perfectly acceptable translation of Malheur. But in this context, you know, you find one of your best friends dead and you yell, bad luck. It just, it's kind of a tin ear, I think. So, you know, there isn't really good translation of these plays, but there is a translation and that, and that's better than nothing. Of course, these, these plays do not credit. Okay. These translations. And they don't have any editorial matter at all. By the way, incidentally, Dumon McKay also wrote a forced a four part stage adaptation of the kind of kind of Monte Cristo, Monte Cristo part one, Monte Cristo part two, the content more self and the effort, and the indefatigable Frank J. Moorlach has translated those also. And those translations have the same virtues and biases as the musketeers plays, but at least they have the virtue of existing. Which is has and Selma Descartes, we're sure is a perfection. Again, of course, no credit to my game. 11. There's a fourth play in the trilogy of musketeers plays as well. Not only is the three book musketeers series of novels really kind of sort of a series of four books. So the three book musketeers series of plays is really kind of sort of a series of four plays. Excuse me, but there's four of us. So there's this other play from 1856, la jeunesse de Louis Quatorze, which literally would be the youth of Louis 14, Louis the 14th. It would be somewhat less awkwardly translated as Louis the 14th and youth are still less awkwardly translated as young Louis the 14th. Now unlike the red Sphinx which takes place between the first and second novels this one takes place between the second and third novels. And the red Sphinx in that, well, d'artagnan and autos and portos and atomists do not appear. The real life character historical characters who are main characters in those novels are also main characters in this play, and their portrayals continuous with their portrayal in the novels. And the other plays and so they again they inhabit the same fictionalized historical universe. So I think there's, you know, I think that the case for including young Louis the 14th among the musketeers plays is a strong, or you might think as weak but I'll say a strong as including the red Sphinx in the list of the musketeers novels. Now, there's one complication with this play, young Louis the 14th exists in two versions the first version was banned from the stage by the sensors and do not died before he had a chance to finish revising it. So the revision was completed by his son Alexandra do my face. Of course was no mean playwright and novelist in his own right he's probably best known for the novel, maybe with the camellias which was the basis for both the very opera opera la traviata and the cargo movie Camille. Anyway, so there are these two versions. Morelock has translated one of the two versions I'm not sure which one because again the more luck translations have no editorial notes. He's translated as young Louis the 14th. But in this case there is another translation Barnett Shaw, I don't know anything about Barnett Shaw, other than this but Barnett Shaw has published a translation that combines bits of both versions under the name young King Louis. You can find this in Barnett Shaw's translation, The Great Lover and Other Plays which is a translation of four plays by Dumas. The only one that connects with the musketeers verse is is young King Louis. It's print, but it's findable at not insanely expensive prices. From the standpoint of literary style Barnett Shaw is better than more lock if you compare you compare the two side by side looking at. They're both with the French they're both pretty faithful to the French although they're faithful to different versions as I mentioned, but they're both pretty faithful but in cases where they're dealing with the same passages. They're both pretty faithful but with Shaw you're in good hands. You can imagine someone actually performing this play with the more lock it's a bit more. It's probably that there isn't some addition that some translation that clearly states exactly which passages come from which version which was the other version. This one doesn't really do that although it has a little bit of editorial matter which is more than the zero that the more lock has. The original stories are more morally and politically complex than many of the popular adaptations. So, because there have been lots and lots of adaptations of, especially of the first novel but I'll be other ones as well. And the adaptations are often not always often much more simplistic than the books. They usually portray Russia as a purely maniacally scheming villain. Now Richard Cardinal Richard in the books is a much more morally gray figure. He's, you know, sometimes he's an antagonist but sometimes he's a protagonist. He's, he's not just a scenery chewing villain although, you know, Tim Curry's performance in that clip that comes from the 1993 movie I think, you know, is a lot of fun, but it's not accurate to the books. Hello everyone. Also the musketeers themselves are a lot more gray and complex. Atos, for example, is a fairly unpleasant misogynist. Artemis is this pretty cold-hearted unscrupulous, ruthlessly ambitious schemer who, you know, in some ways comes across as at least as villainous and maybe more villainous than the alleged antagonists. And though he does, he does have this one redeeming feature of the old, but he does have loyalty to his other musketeers that loyalty is often tested because in the books, the musketeers often are often at odds with each other, each other. They're often in opposite sides of various political struggles and they have to reconcile their friendship and loyalty with each other with their loyalty to, you know, whoever they are on the side of, or in Artemis's cases, mostly his loyalty to himself. Now Dumas himself was politically kind of complex too. I mean, officially he was a all for republicanism. He played an active role in the 1830 revolution in France and later again in the 1860s or Gemento in Italy. Dumas had a kind of soft spot in his heart for kings. I'm saying Dumas because I don't know that much about McKay's personal stuff, but I've put his personal life, but I know quite a bit about Dumas. Dumas had a soft spot in his heart for kings. He was very susceptible to royal flattery. He, you know, when he was invited to go visit Louis Philippe, he was sort of walking on air. And I think that the musketeer novels portrayal of the bourbon cause in France and the Stuart cause in England is, shall we say, unduly, unduly generous. But, you know, still very enjoyable stories. Okay, the next two facts about the musketeers are a bit more tenuously connected, but they're kind of interesting. 13 later writers have introduced crossovers between the stories of D'Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac. The real life D'Artagnan and the real life Cyrano de Bergerac were contemporaries. They have no idea whether they knew each other. And Dumas and McKay don't have them either. But number of later writers, because lots and lots of people have written more novels, particularly about the musketeers, novels or plays or whatever about the musketeers. A number of later writers have succumbed to the temptation of doing kind of crossover. But the first one was the most famous Edmmeral Stone's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac, which actually contains a cameo by D'Artagnan. Now if you only know the 1950 movie version, well the 1950 movie version is great. It's my favorite film adaptation, mainly because Jose Ferrer's acting is so great. Also I think that the Brian Hooker translation is, if I have some quarrels with it, is on the whole really, really captures the spirit. It doesn't stick almost quite as close to the letter as I might like, but it really does capture the spirit of the original. So that's the best movie version. But the movie version is somewhat abridged compared to the play, and in particular it leaves out the D'Artagnan cameo. But in the novel, sorry, in the play, right after the duel toward the beginning of the play, a musketeer comes up to congratulate Cyrano on his excellent sword play in the duel, and the musketeer turns out to be D'Artagnan. Now that little cameo wasn't enough for some later writers. So for example, in 1925, Henry Bedford Jones really published a novel called The King's Passport, which I have not read, but in which D'Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac meet. And then likewise in 1925, not to be outdone, Paul-Féval Fiss, I say Paul-Féval Fiss because his father, Paul-Féval Perre, was also a writer, and they wrote lots of similar stuff, lots of adventure stuff, even some science fiction. He released a four-volume novel called D'Artagnan versus Cyrano, which he followed up three years later with a three-volume novel, D'Artagnan and Cyrano Reconciled. So there are seven volumes of D'Artagnan and Cyrano interacting. And there was also a 1964 film, French film, called Cyrano and D'Artagnan, reversing the order, where José Ferrer actually reprises his role from the 1950 movie, although I haven't seen it from all the evidence I've been able to acquire about it. It's not a worthy successor to the 1950 film, and you can safely skip it, but still it is a, and you know, for one thing Ferrer's dialogue is dubbed in French, so you're not even getting the full range of his acting. But everyone says that, you know, all the critics have ever said that his acting is not nearly as good in this one as in the previous one anyway, and Ferrer himself said, well, the film was never finished, they ran out of money. So anyway, it doesn't sound like a jam. Okay. 14. Why there's a candy bar named after the three musketeers. I'm not at all aware that there is a candy bar called three musketeers. In my data even had a picture of three musketeers on the rapper, although the current rapper no longer has them and I'm not really sure when they dropped off. But why is it called three musketeers. Well, there's sort of a reason. And this is a reason for the three. I don't know if there's a reason for the musketeers reason for the three is that when it first came out in the 1930s. The candy bar actually was three different little candy bars in one package, one chocolate one strawberry one vanilla. And that, that idea of having three things chocolate strawberry vanilla and that's a pretty that was a pretty common thing, lots of different things but anyway there was this service of three musketeers packet would actually have these little candies in it. In 1940s because of the war and sugar rationing, it became cheaper to drop the strawberry and vanilla and just stick with the chocolate. Also, I think it may have been cheaper to make one big bar than three little ones. I'm not sure about that. But anyway, reportedly they, that was when they dropped it. So that's why it was called three as for musketeers. They may have just gone with musketeers because it was a popular. Well known. And in the public domain. Three thingy. They could have even after the Holy Trinity, but I might have been more controversial. You have to argue which one. Which is that to be a chocolate of Jesus. But, but surely, God the Father should be the chocolate. Oh, and then the son and the Holy Spirit can have a fight over strawberry vanilla. One possibility as to what called three musketeers is originally the idea was that these things because because they came in threes that could be shared and even after they became one bar. Originally the bar was was not long at them like this was this bigger shape like that. And the it was still advertised as something you could share. Although I'm not sure how many people did share them. So, maybe the idea was that the famous slogan of the musketeers all for one and one for all, which is not nearly as big a thing in the novels as it is in the adaptations always based on something novels. But it's not like their official slogan or anything but but that sort of became their official slogan popularly. And you might think that maybe a big chocolate bar you could share your friends. Some of captures the solidarity of three musketeers. I don't know how it's pretty tenuous still. There it goes. Okay, so those are the 14 facts, but I also want to give you a little bonus. And finally, some advice as to how to read them. If you want to read them in diegetic order that if you want to read these musketeers works in the order in which they take place, as opposed to the order which they were published. So, and also like which editions. So let's say start out you start with the first novel three musketeers. There are the Ellsworth translation, although, as I said the Oxford edition is also useful to consult for the notes. Then second the play, the young musketeers or more locks translation is the famous keteers. And third, the novel the Red Sphinx, which Ellsworth is translated, which comprises look on tomorrow and the dove. Wickedly leaves out one chapter, as I mentioned and grumped about fourth the novel 20 years after, which is now available in two parts from Ellsworth 20 years later 20 years after and blood royal. Though again the Oxford edition which is one volume is still useful for its notes. And I have the play the musketeers which more lock translates as the musketeers 20 years later. Not after. Six, the play young Louis the 14th, the young King Louis. I would recommend the Barnett Shaw translation. In his book The Great Lover and Other Plays, although if you want to compare the two versions more locks. The young Louis the 14th is also useful. Seven, the novel, the massive sprawling novel, the Vicente Brajalan. Currently, you're stuck with the Oxford three part translation. The Vicente Brajalan Louis Lavalier and the man in the iron mask. Because Ellsworth has completed only one of his projected four volume translation. And that one hasn't even come out yet although I think it's, it's due to come out within a month or two. Last I checked. You know, so if you're reading these if you're starting with reading these now by the time you get to that one and probably that will be out and maybe the next one too. The prisoner of the Bastille or the end of the musketeers, which more like translates as the last of the three musketeers which I've complained about the inaptness or ineptness of that title but you know, last of three musketeers say, you know, the three and this is the last of the three. We actually means the last in the sense of the end of like, oh, that's the last of those musketeers. That's the sense of which. So close to me, but anyway, meaning is the ending and is. But anyway, the prisoner of the Bastille is the is the real title, but well once they get the musketeers and there's a bit of a feeling of a hustling and from both Moorlach and Ellsworth, a bit here. And of course, none of these things, none of these works have okay on the cover and. And that is a crime about which I continue to grump. Also, as I mentioned, of course, you know, the Count of Monte Cristo also. You know, there, those four plays that do my and my cave broke that book into our published in four volumes. Which Moorlach just gives the title of my crystal part one part two part three part four to the four. And those are also available. And of course, I've also mentioned in this video, the recent translation of George which, as I said soft pedals some of the perhaps racism on the most part, or. And he's part because of what that's also co-authored a little someone else toward. Saves of unmixed African ancestry, full blooded blacks. But, but still it's a it's a good book that I don't have a strong view about what the relative roles of Dumas and Malfi were in making that book there's not this much evidence about that. What I've been able to find is it is about Dumas and Maki. You get the same range of views about that book that either that, you know, mouth he really wrote the whole thing and do my just put his name on it versus. The view that mouth he just wrote a rough outline and then do my really filled it all in. The difference is that I haven't seen any decisive evidence. I don't know whether or anyone between for George, but anyway, it's a good book. And I don't know this transition to a soft pedal some of the racist stuff which you might think is a bug or a feature. But it's a feature in terms of you know less discomfort or reading it a bug in terms of historical accuracy. It's a it's a recent and fairly widely praised for the most part of translation and so if you want to spend a lot of time reading Dumas and Maki and Malfi those are some of the works that Dumas was involved with these are some of the best ones. The kind of money crystal you should read the novel first before the plays the plays are interestingly different from the novel in some ways. You know so And then there's George you've got the musketeers novels and plays you've got the more the crystal novel and plays and you've got George do my road do my road with and without other people plenty of other stuff but that's probably the things I've just mentioned are probably the No, the creme de la creme in my humble opinion. And that is my little compendium of Dumasian information and see you next video.