Dumas, Alexandre
The Three Musketeers
Estimate: £400 - £600
Auction: 18 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
Translated by William Robson. London: George Routledge and Co., 1853. 8vo, viii 423 pp., contemporary half calf, half-title discarded, binding worn, splitting to joint-ends, contemporary ownership inscription to title-page, manuscript notes in pencil and blue crayon to final page and rear endpapers, a few similar corrections and markings in the text [cf. Sadleir 3758]
Footnote
First edition of this translation published as part of the Routledge's Railway Library series, which began in 1849: ‘This long-lived prolific and enormously successful series has been generally regarded as a pioneer venture in cheap-book publishing and as the originator of the shilling edition of popular fiction. Actually it was a deliberate and not altogether scrupulous imitation of the Parlour Library, which it sedulously copied in outward appearance as well as in appeal for public favour’ (Sadleir). The first edition in the original French was published in 1844, followed by the first English translation in 1846.