The Three Musketeers

In 1625 young d'Artagnan rides from Gascony to Paris with a letter of introduction, an old horse and a hot temper, and on his first day challenges three of the King's Musketeers to duels: Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Instead of fighting they become friends, and together they race to England to recover the Queen's diamond studs before Cardinal Richelieu and the beautiful, deadly Milady de Winter can ruin her.

Serialised in a Paris newspaper in 1844 and written with Auguste Maquet, the novel gave the world 'all for one, one for all'. It is pure narrative pleasure, and the adventures continue in Twenty Years After and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) was the grandson of a French nobleman and an enslaved woman of African descent in Saint-Domingue; his father became a general of the Revolution. Arriving in Paris as a clerk with little education, Dumas made his name in the theatre and then, with the collaborator Auguste Maquet, turned history into the most popular adventure novels of the century.

The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo were followed by dozens more, earning fortunes that Dumas spent as fast as they came, on travel, newspapers and a fantastic château. In 2002 his remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris among the great figures of France.