Rating: 
Summary: Great adventure story
Review: This book is a staple in adventure reading. Following the adventures of the three musketeers and D'Artagnan was a delight and it was hard to put down. The action of duels, the intrigue of politics, and the search for true love make the book's appeal universal. Great book to get motivate young children to read for fun.
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Summary: great story, [bad] editor
Review: While it is needless to say The Three Musketeers is a great story, with sward fights and all, when I read Oxford World Classics edition, I would read the explanitory notes,as I read the story. it would often comment on diffrent mistakes Dumes makes, While I found many typos and other errors in the explanitory notes as well, I found this fairly annoying when I read the book, small mistakes that don't at all take away from Dumes's writing.
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Summary: A timeless, classic story that has it all.....
Review: In 'Musketeers' Alexandre Dumas set the stage for future works as he introduced readers to the exploits and adventures of D'Artagnan and his friends Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, a.k.a. The Three Musketeers. Subsequent books follow, telling further adventures 'Twenty Years Later' and 'Ten Years After' that. But in Musketeers, readers meet the young D'Artagnan and his trio of swashbuckling companions for the first time.Trying to classify the story into one genre is an exercise in futility, as it encompasses so many. But to me, it is most of all a comedy. Many, many times I found myself chuckling while reading the foibles of French manners in the 17th century, as chronicled in the 19th century by Dumas. The Musketeers are warriors, spies, womanizers, drunkards; but above all they are gentlemen. Two men about to duel discuss a salve one offers the other to heal a prior wound; A lackey who is ordered not to speak is reprimanded for bringing news that will spare the Musketeers from harm and trying to deliver it to them; a duel is avoided as there is not sufficient time to fight it properly; and an innkeeper is maligned for not having better wines in his cellar while one of the Musketeers holes up there for days after not paying his bill. While the action is well plotted, and the storyline twists and turns are plausible and palpable, the most intriguing, captivating, and charming aspect of this story for me was its humor. In a world full of formulaic, contrived 'adventure tales' it was a treat to step back in time several hundred years and find a real adventure story. Classics survive for a reason, while other stories are relegated to the bargain bins. While Dumas was not exactly thought of as 'high quality' literature, and his intelligence has been the subject of discourse and debate, he had a clever way with words, characters, and stories. His plot here is not at all overblown, and while his characters may be larger than life, their life isn't. Even as his 'over the top' anti-heroes cross blades again and again with the Cardinal Richelieu's forces, bed women time and again, fight off attack after attack, and escape certain death more than once, the world they live in never seems like a work of fiction. In contrast to Count of Monte Cristo, this book is only 'lighter' in the manner in which the story is unfolded. While that book had a much darker theme, this story is every bit as engrossing. I am happy to have saved this book to savor in adulthood, and highly recommend reading the adventures of the Musketeers to anyone with a love for classics.
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Summary: Excellent! Dumas is the 19th Century's Best
Review: Action, drama, political intrigue and a history lesson wrapped in 600+ pages of powerful storytelling. A must read for all ages.
Rating: 
Summary: Note of Caution
Review: The Three Musketeers is one of the great adventure classics of all time. Be warned, however, that the Puffin Classics paperback is an abridged edition. You will get more wonderful detail in an unabridged edition.
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Summary: An Action-filled Classic
Review: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is filled with action in the form of conflict & sword-fights. Set during the reign of Louis XIII & Cardinal Richelieu in France, D'Artagnan seeks enrollment into the Musketeers. But the plot thickens as he courts a woman. There is even more conflict as Milady, a beautiful but demon-like woman, is hunted down by D'Artagnan & company. D'Artagnan also faces several sword-fights against the Cardinal's Guards, and conflicts with the Cardinal himself. There is action on almost every page, and I recommend The Three Musketeers to those looking for an action-filled classic!
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Summary: These Guys Are Passing For Heroes?
Review: I'm normally all for a good yarn full of swashbucklers and adventure, but this one just didn't sit well with me. I found the protagonists to be less than sympathetic and far from admirable. D'Artagnan and company were nothing but a pack of self-centered brutes with egos the size of Jupiter. They bullied and slaughtered anyone who got in their way [or even annoyed them a little], they were extremely snobbish, and they spent the whole novel sponging off of anyone they could. I realize that the culture was different back then, but I just couldn't make myself care what happened to these guys. But, if you'd like to read an exciting adventure story with a worthy hero, I strongly recommmend "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Orczy.
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Summary: Nothing like the original
Review: I've seen several renditions of the story through the years, and finally read the original story. I've also been a long-time fan of author Steven Brust, who I have seen credit Dumas as an inspiration. I'm glad I finally took the time to read the classic. It was worth it just for the dialog - clever, witty and always funny. The story is only mediocre, however, and the wheels really seem to fly off at the end of the book, but overall a really fun story.
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Summary: Just plain fun to read
Review: Dumas is deservedly famous for his intricate and engrossing novels, and The Three Musketeers is certainly no exception. As far as classics go, this one is among the most fun that you'll ever read. The novel follows the protagonist D'Artagnan as he tries to join the French king's elite bodyguard unit, the Musketeers. D'Artagnan befriends three current Musketeers (Porthos, Athos and Aramis) and what follows is a fast-paced literary romp as the four friends share a series of swashbuckling adventures in 17th century France. The plot is full of twists and turns but is cleverly developed and believable. Dumas expertly develops the characters, engaging the reader as the characters experience war, love and just about everything in between. The edition I'm reviewing (the Illustrated Junior Library version) is highly abridged (300 pages vs over 600 pages) and has many beautiful illustrations, making an already fun novel even more accessible for young readers.
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Summary: Not Quite What I'd Expected
Review: Although I'm a lover of historical fiction, especially the 19th century historical romances (read "historical adventures"), I'd never read this one. So I figured I had to finally attempt such a classic of the genre. Well, it was enjoyable but not really first class, I'm sorry to say. Not up there with IVANHOE or THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (which, itself, is somewhat flawed) or H. Rider Haggard's ERIC BRIGHTEYES, to name a few. Dumas' famous classic is a tale of a young country bumpkin of the lower Gascon nobility come to the big city (Paris) to make his fortune (by joining the king's elite guard, known as the Musketeers). He quickly stumbles into trouble, even before reaching Paris, and never manages to get clear of it again as one thing leads to another. He hooks up early on with three Musketeers of the guard whom he inadvertently offends and then, rather than dueling each to the death as they demand and he agrees to, he ends up, purely by circumstance (and his naive loyalty to the king), on their side. This all leads to further intrigue and mayhem including a somewhat episodic adventure taking D'Artagnan (our hero) to England on the Queen's urgent business, to foil the Cardinal who is the king's highest and most relied-on minister, and the Queen's enemy at the same time. And the king's sporting competitor in matters of state and the military to boot! There is a sub-plot as well with a scheming and avaricious lady who works for the Cardinal and who has her own fish to fry, and lots of kidnappings and sword fights in the mix. But the characters never really come to life. D'Artagnan and his three friends in the Musketeers are cleverly written and bigger than life but hardly full-blooded or anything but one-dimensional. And D'Artagnan, himself, seems oddly simple and yet, inevitably is described as the cleverest of the four companions who are all a good deal older and more experienced than he is. More strange is D'Artagnan's skill with the sword. From the first he is described as being awkward and somewhat untutored, even in weaponry. Yet, from his initial crossing of swords, he inevitably bests all comers, no matter how much more experienced or skilled they are described as being. In fact, he seems to be the equal of, or superior to, his three Musketeer companions, surpassing them in this skill as he surpasses them in intelligence and cleverness. And yet he is an utter dolt in his dealings with women, a veritable mooning adolescent in the face of the the women he falls for. Nor do the women get treated particularly well by the writer, for their part. I suppose it was the convention of the times but they are all either beautiful and helpless (downright simple, actually) or they are beautiful and deadly. But never do they seem particularly real, from the Queen to Milady to D'Artagnan's objet d'amour, to the lovely servant girl who hankers after D'Artagnan, nearly as moon-eyed as he is about his fancied mistresses. All very strange indeed. I suppose the book broke ground in its time and it is somewhat fun to read, especially after the first third which takes rather a long time to set up all the plot dynamics. But I must say I was frustrated no end by the mindless meanderings and utterly frivolous actions of the four companions as they proceed through their adventures. I mean why would trained soldiers gamble away perfectly good, indeed outstanding, English mounts which they had been gifted, knowing how dear these were and how necessary to men like them? My favorite part of the tale, however, was the four friends' picnic under the Huguenot guns so perhaps this was just in character for them. But what characters! -- SWM
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