A new translation of Dumas’s rousing sequel to The Three Musketeers, picking up twenty years after the conclusion of that classic novel and continuing the adventures of the valiant d'Artagnan and his three loyal friends.

When Twenty Years After opens it is 1648: the Red Sphinx, Cardinal Richelieu, is dead, France is ruled by a regency in the grip of civil war, and across the English Channel the monarchy of King Charles I hangs by a thread. As d'Artagnan will find, these are problems that can’t be solved with a sword thrust. In Twenty Years After, the musketeers confront maturity and face its greatest challenge: sometimes, you fail. It’s in how the four comrades respond to failure, and rise above it, that we begin to see the true characters of Dumas’s great heroes.

A true literary achievement, Twenty Years After is long overdue for a modern reassessment-and a new translation. As an added inducement to readers, Lawrence Ellsworth has discovered a lost chapter that was overlooked in the novel’s original publication, and is included in none of the available English translations to date-until now.