Dumas | The Three Musketeers, London, 1846, half calf, first English edition

Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers, or, the feats and fortunes of a Gascon adventurer... Translated from the French, by William Barrow. London: Bruce and Wyld, 1846

8vo (188 x 120mm.), series title-page (The library of foreign romance, volume 1) and preface (dated March 1846) before main title-page, publisher's advertisements on final verso, contemporary half calf, P1-2 and 7-8 slightly shorter, binding somewhat rubbed, lower hinge broken

FIRST ENGLISH BOOK EDITION OF THE THREE MUSKETEERS. Dumas's popular and influential novel was first published in La Siècle in 1844 in serial form, and the lack of copyright restrictions for French authors abroad meant that pirated editions and translations could quickly follow; see lot 224 for a later English translation.

This first English translation, by William Barrow (1817-1877), appeared in seven or eight 96-page sections at sixpence apiece, then in volume form, as here, for 7 shillings. It was the first volume of The Library of Foreign Romance, a series of translations of popular foreign novels, which capitalised on the contemporary popularity for Dumas and Eugène Sue.

"Without any fear of contradiction it may be said that no translated foreign romance has had so many editions published in the English-speaking world as Les Trois Mousquetaires" (Munro, p.79). Another English translation in parts was issued at the same time, published by G. Vickers between January and May 1846, in sixteen penny-parts.

LITERATURE

Munro p.80 ("A full and excellent rendering"); Sadleir 3749/1

PROVENANCE

George Stevens, inscription on flyleaf dated 1882