THE LAST CAVALIER by Alexandre Dumas
Wellington Leg: On September 12th Pegasus Books US will release a novel by Alexandre Dumas called THE LAST CAVALIER. It’s a genuine Dumas manuscript, one that scholars had not expected to find. The novel is about Bonaparte, the First Consul of the early republic. Dumas died in 1870 near Dieppe, France shortly before the arrival of Prussian troops in the city.
Dumas was an early practitioner of the roman feuilleton, the serial novel, published weekly in newspapers of the era. In modern times residents of Wellington Leg thrill to each new installment of the earl’s potboilers thus drawing massive advertisements to the pages of the Druidical & Literary, the broadsheet scandal sheet.
Your reporter has made minor inroads while reading the latest Zoe Sharp. Dumas introduces his cavalier after the battle of the 100 fought between the Royalists and Republicans in 1801. The novel is great fun and completes a version of French history Dumas brings to vibrant life.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
You’re kidding. An unpublished Dumas manuscript?
Where have I been?
September 17th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Apparently the same place the rest of us have been for the past 137 years. Thinking the man was dead and so were any further novels. According to an article by Washington Post’s Michael Dirda (Book World, September 16th edition), Claude Schopp, Dumas’s personal scholar, discovered that our ailing literary hero churned out a newspaper serial without an ending. Why was this newspaper serial without an ending? Because Dumas had the heartless gumption to leave his readers hanging by up and dying. That bum. Over a century later, the publishing world is ready to correct its faults. Anything for a buck.
September 17th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Sarah, there is a forward by Schopp that explains how Dumas wrote the book, writing chapters for newspaper publication while negotiating book rights. Schopp wrote the final two chapters.