Bedford Anthology of World Literature Book 5: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1900, Vol. 5 Book

What a hoot! I remember reading this many years ago, but the older me liked it a lot more.

The three musketeers are four great characters. Yes, four - you'll see why. Add in several other very interesting characters and the book can't help but be good. Lay it all on a historical foundation. A few quick searches suggest that there's a lot more factual basis to this story than I thought. Buckingham and Milady were the real deal, and some sources suggest there was even more to the story than Dumas showed us. And as others have noted, one of the female leads is Really Nasty!

The interactions between the four heroes are written in a florid style that you may recognize if you've read Steven Brust's Phoenix Guards series, which openly admits to being a tribute to Dumas. But when we need plot events to move things along, they zoom easily.

The book's overall attitude is delightfully light-hearted, despite some grim happenings. I wonder if Dumas was the first to introduce the idea that heroes needn't worry about being shot at, because the bad guys will rarely hit them. Or that if people do get wounded they just carry on and eventually heal up.

The gentlemanly rules of dueling are fascinating. A guy stabs you through the body, then helps you to medical care while you congratulate him on his good swordplay.

I read the Gutenberg Project e-edition. It's a long book but the pages just fly by. Recommended.
And it will probably make you go and read some real history.