Alexandre Dumas

Ten Years Later Annotated Alexandre Dumas

The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later is a novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is the third and last of The d'Artagnan Romances, following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. It appeared first in serial form between 1847 and 1850. In the English translations, the 268 chapters of this large volume are usually subdivided into three, but sometimes four or even six individual books. In three-volume English editions the volumes are entitled The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. Each volume is roughly the length of the original The Three Musketeers (1844). In four-volume editions volume names remain except that Louise de la Vallière and The Man in the Iron Mask move from second and third volumes to third and fourth, with Ten Years Later becoming the second volume. Set in the 1660s and concerned with the early reign of Louis XIV, the novel has been called an "origins" story of the King, "a tale about the education of a young man who went on to rule for over 70 years and become one of France's most beloved monarchs." Naturally, in a novel about Dumas' musketeers, the characters play an important rule in Louis' education.