D'Artagnan Romances

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The d'Artagnan Romances are a set of three novels by Alexandre Dumas telling the story of the musketeer d'Artagnan from his humble beginnings in Gascony to his death as a marshal of France in the siege of Maastricht in 1673.

Dumas based the life and character of d'Artagnan on the 17th century captain of musketeers Charles de Batz-Castelmore, Comte d'Artagnan, and Dumas' portrayal was indebted to the semi-fictionalized memoirs of d'Artagnan written 27 years after the hero's death by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (published in 1700).

The three novels are:

• The Three Musketeers, set in 1625; first published in serial form in the magazine Le Siècle between March and July 1844. Dumas claimed it was based on manuscripts he had discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
• Twenty Years After, set in 1648; serialized from January to August, 1845.
• The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, set between 1660 and 1673; serialized from October 1847 to January 1850. This vast novel has been split into three, four, or five volumes at various points in the history.
  • In the three-volume edition, the novels are titled The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière and The Man in the Iron Mask.
  • In the four-volume edition, the novels are titled The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise de la Vallière and The Man in the Iron Mask.
  • The five-volume edition generally does not give titles to the smaller portions.

The novel "The Son of Porthos", a further sequel to the d'Artagnan books (though d'Artagnan himself does not appear), was published in 1883 under the pen-name of Alexandre Dumas, and is still sold as such. However it was actually written by Paul Mahalin.