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Ideal for elementary or pre-intermediate learners of English looking to improve and practise their English. The book is filled with useful vocabulary that is carefully graded and easy to understand, it also comes with audio, so that you can listen to the story at the same time as reading.It is the year 1627, and young d'Artagnan comes to Paris with a dream - to become a King's Musketeer. Three of these brave soldiers - Porthos, Athos and Aramis - soon become his friends.
After a short time d'Artagnan has fallen in love - and into great danger. Can the three musketeers and d'Artagnan fight against the evil plans of the beautiful Milady and the cruel Cardinal Richelieu?

Alexandre Dumas's novels are notable for their suspense and excitement, their foul deeds, hairsbreadth escapes, and glorious victories. In The Black Tulip (1850), the shortest of Dumas's most famous tales, the real hero is no Musketeer, but a flower. The novel - a deceptively simple story - is set in Holland in 1672, and weaves the historical events surrounding the brutal murder of John de Witte and his brother Cornelius into a tale of romantic love. The novel is also a timeless political allegory in which Dumas, drawing on the violence and crimes of history, makes his case against tyranny and puts all his energies into creating a symbol of justice and tolerance: the fateful tulipa negra. This new edition reprints the first, classic English translation. David Coward sets the novel in the context of its author's life, the turbulent history of the Dutch Republic, and the amazing `tulipmania' of the seventeenth century which brought wealth to some and ruin to many.

This new translation successfully combines a feeling for the formal proprieties of Dumas's style with a supple and colloquial liveliness that once again proves this story irresistible.

La Reine Margot (1845) is a novel of suspense and drama, re-creating the violent world of intrigue, murder and duplicity of the French Renaissance. Dumas fills his canvas with a gallery of unforgettable characters, unremitting action and the engaging generosity of spirit which has made him one of the world's greatest and best-loved story-tellers. This is a modernized version of a classic translation of 1846 by the award-winning translator, David Coward.

Featuring D'Artagnan and the now ageing Musketeers, Louise de la Vallière is the middle section of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or, Ten Years After. Against a tender love story, Dumas continues the suspense which began with The Vicomte de Bragelonne and will end with The Man in the Iron Mask. This new edition of the classic English translation of 1857 is richly annotated and sets Dumas's invigorating tale in its historical and cultural context.

The Three Musketeers (1844) is one of the most famous historical novels ever written. It is also one of the world's greatest historical adventure stories, and its heroes have become symbols for the spirit of youth, daring, and comradeship. The action takes place in the 1620s at the court of Louis XIII, where the musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, with their companion, the headstrong d'Artagnan, are engaged in a battle against Richelieu, the King's minister, and the beautiful, unscrupulous spy, Milady. Behind the flashing blades and bravura, in this first adventure of the Musketeers, Dumas explores the eternal conflict between good and evil. This new edition is the most fully annotated to date in English, providing explanatory notes which set the work in its historical, literary, and cultural context.

It is May 1660 and the fate of nations is at stake. Mazarin plots, Louis XIV is in love, and Raoul de Bragelonne, son of Athos, is intent on serving France and winning the heart of Louise de la Valliere. Meanwhile, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos all undertake their own mysterious enterprises. The Vicomte de Bragelonne opens an epic adventure which continues with Louise de la Valliere and reaches its climax in The Man in the Iron Mask. This new edition of the classic translation presents a key episode in the Musketeers saga, fully annotated and with an introduction that sets Dumas's saga in its historical and cultural context.

Twenty Years After (1845), the sequel to The Three Musketeers, is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure. Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil. In his Introduction to this edition David Coward sets both the author and his exciting tale in their historical and cultural contexts.