A swashbuckling new hero from the creator of "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo"...
Pegasus Books has scored a coup that it hopes will put the year-old publishing house on the map. On Sept. 12, it will release Alexandre Dumas' lost novel, "The Last Cavalier," a lavish swashbuckler in the tradition of his greatest works.
"If we get the proper media attention, I think it can be a big success," Pegasus publisher Claiborne Hancock told Publishers Weekly.
The manuscript, the third in Dumas père' trilogy on the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, was unearthed in the archives of Paris' National Library by noted Dumas scholar Claude Schopp, who completed the book’s final chapter based on years of research. First published in 2005 as "Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine," the novel spent 12 weeks on bestseller lists in France, where it sold 250,000 copies.
It's the story of Hector de Sainte-Hermine, the last in a line of French aristocrats who is released from prison in 1804 to serve as an enlisted man in Napoleon’s army, bent on revenge for the death of his family. "An Aramis as powerful as Porthos, a D'Artagnan wise as Athos," Le Monde wrote of the chevalier.
It's the second treat this year for Dumas fans, who have a sexy new translation of "The Three Musketeers" from Viking to devour.
Kristina Lindgren
