The Queen's Necklace

Alexandre Dumas

Jun 2015 · Read Books Ltd

About this ebook

This antiquarian book contains Alexandre Dumas's 1849 novel, "The Queen's Necklace". It is based on a famous case of fraud and royal scandal concerning Marie Antoinette's complicity in a plot to deceive the crown jewellers as to the cost of a diamond necklace, which further spoiled the already-tarnished reputation of the queen. Although seeming to present an idealised picture of Marie Antoinette, it also illustrates the decay and impending decline of the contemporary nobility. A thrilling tale by a master story-teller, "The Queen's Necklace" is highly recommended for fans of historical fiction, and would make for a worthy addition to any bookshelf. Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) was a famous French writer. He is best remembered for his exciting romantic sagas, including "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo". Despite making a great deal of money from his writing, Dumas was almost perpetually penniless thanks to his extravagant lifestyle. His novels have been translated into nearly a hundred different languages, and have inspired over 200 motion pictures. We are republishing this antiquarian book in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

About the author

After an idle youth, Alexandre Dumas went to Paris and spent some years writing. A volume of short stories and some farces were his only productions until 1927, when his play Henri III (1829) became a success and made him famous. It was as a storyteller rather than a playwright, however, that Dumas gained enduring success. Perhaps the most broadly popular of French romantic novelists, Dumas published some 1,200 volumes during his lifetime. These were not all written by him, however, but were the works of a body of collaborators known as "Dumas & Co." Some of his best works were plagiarized. For example, The Three Musketeers (1844) was taken from the Memoirs of Artagnan by an eighteenth-century writer, and The Count of Monte Cristo (1845) from Penchet's A Diamond and a Vengeance. At the end of his life, drained of money and sapped by his work, Dumas left Paris and went to live at his son's villa, where he remained until his death.