Loved the Book--But Heed My Warning, Gentle Reader, Lest You Go Astray

The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this first part of the novel and look forward to the rest. That's my review. Ahem.

Except to add: Dumas is always fun to read, IMO, and this sequel to The Three Musketeers is no exception. But a word of warning--it's published in strange ways, and if you try to get hold of the book in it's entirety, you're bound to get it wrong.

Here's why.

As a single book, it is called, The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. If you read it in a single book, it would be a very big book indeed. Other than ebooks, I haven't found it like this.

It is usually broken into three parts (as Wikipedia informs me): The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. So if you want the WHOLE book, and search for and find The Vicomte of Bragelonne, you may be disappointed to learn that you have only the first 1/3 of the novel.

It is also sometimes split into four parts, which is how I found it. The titles then are like this: The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. In this case, The Vicomte of Bragelonne is just the first 1/4 of the whole novel!

The titles seem rather unimportant--it is the same story, whether in one volume, three volumes, or four.

Between lovely Christmas gifts and my own searching on eBay, I put together all four parts from the same edition, volumes 12-15 of Collier's complete Dumas (or something like that--I could look, but the book is already back on the shelf, several feet away) that are about 110 years old. They're still in good shape and have that wonderful smell for sure...

So there ya go. Be careful out there. Eventually, soon, I intend to read the other three parts and then write an actual review for the whole thing. Until then--stay tuned. Or go about your business. Whatever you like. It's all good. ;)

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