Martin Guerre: Celebrated Crimes, book 12
Alexandre Dumas
Feb 2015 · Celebrated Crimes Book 12 · Freshwater Seas · Narrated by Robert Bethune
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1 hr 49 min
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To paraphrase the note from the translator, The Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas père was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language—has minced no words—to describe violent scenes of violent times.
In this, the twelfth of the series, Dumas, the novelist-historian, is back in full force. His subject is a well-documented historical fact: that a man named Arnaud du Thil was able to pass, for two years, as Martin Guerre, deceiving the fellow-villages, neighbors, friends, family and even the wife of Martin Guerre with equal success, even to the point of becoming the father of two children by Martin Guerre's wife. The uncanny resemblance between the two men and the amazing sang-froid of the imposter created as situation that has fascinated historians, playwrights, novelists and moviemakers for well over four hundred years.
Of course, Dumas, the dramatist and novelist, cannot help embellishing the work of Dumas, the historian. He gives us words and actions that cannot possibly be part of the historical record from scenes that are as effectively histrionic as they are undocumented. However, all his melodrama is well based on his history, and he certainly makes a wonderful tale out of his materials.
Dumas collaborated on this, as he frequently did in his works, with Fournier, who worked with him on several of his dramas as well. Nevertheless, it is clearly Dumas who has the final say on this work, as with all the other works in this series.
Enjoy!
In this, the twelfth of the series, Dumas, the novelist-historian, is back in full force. His subject is a well-documented historical fact: that a man named Arnaud du Thil was able to pass, for two years, as Martin Guerre, deceiving the fellow-villages, neighbors, friends, family and even the wife of Martin Guerre with equal success, even to the point of becoming the father of two children by Martin Guerre's wife. The uncanny resemblance between the two men and the amazing sang-froid of the imposter created as situation that has fascinated historians, playwrights, novelists and moviemakers for well over four hundred years.
Of course, Dumas, the dramatist and novelist, cannot help embellishing the work of Dumas, the historian. He gives us words and actions that cannot possibly be part of the historical record from scenes that are as effectively histrionic as they are undocumented. However, all his melodrama is well based on his history, and he certainly makes a wonderful tale out of his materials.
Dumas collaborated on this, as he frequently did in his works, with Fournier, who worked with him on several of his dramas as well. Nevertheless, it is clearly Dumas who has the final say on this work, as with all the other works in this series.
Enjoy!
To paraphrase the note from the translator, The Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas père was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language—has minced no words—to describe violent scenes of violent times.
In this, the twelfth of the series, Dumas, the novelist-historian, is back ...
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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.
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 Dum...
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