I. G. Burnham

There are dreadful -- perhaps scurrilous -- rumors about the Borgias of renaissance Italy, and here Dumas, author of such classics as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, in his Celebrated Crimes series, dishes up the dirt in all its ugly glory. This book was not written for children. Dumas has minced no words in describing the violent scenes of a violent time. In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective, and in others the author makes...

About the end of the reign of the Emperor Paul I, that is to say, towards the middle of the first year of the nineteenth century just as four o'clock in the afternoon was sounding from the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, whose gilded vane overlooks the ramparts of the fortress, a crowd, composed of all sorts and conditions of people, began to gather in front of a house which belonged to General Count Tchermayloff, formerly military governor of a...

Derues Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas pere One September afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the teachers had caused the class to be dismissed half an hour...

Bloodthirsty tyrant or brilliant statesman? Alexandre Dumas explores the complicated legacy of Ali Pacha in this fictionalised biography. A leader under the Ottoman Empire, Pasha ruled over a large portion of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. There's no doubt he was politically astute—he maintained his power by signing alliances with both Napoleon and the British. But Pasha's not part of Dumas' "Celebrated Crimes" series for nothing. His brutality...

Fanatic. Murderer. Martyr. Karl-Ludwig Sand was all of these things and more. Alexandre Dumas delves into his fascinating story as part of the "Celebrated Crimes" series. Sand was a devout believer in German unification. At the time, Germany existed only as a loose confederation. In the name of this cause, he broke into the house of the conservative writer August von Kotzebue and stabbed him to death. Tried and executed in 1820, Sand became a nationalist...

Accused of sorcery, a man of God is put on trial for his life. But the dark forces leading his persecution are far from supernatural. In "Urbain Grandier", Alexandre Dumas recounts one of France's most infamous witchcraft trials. The story begins in the early 1600s, in the parish of Loudon. A convent of nuns claim demonic possession, and the finger of blame is pointed at local priest Father Grandier. What follows is a horror story of exorcisms, torture,...

In a morally corrupt society, where does the guilt for a crime really end? In "La Constantin", Alexandre Dumas introduces us to two women who met untimely ends—Angelique-Louise de Guerchi and Josephine-Charlotte Boullenois. While they were killed by a pair of poisoners, Dumas points the reader towards other forces that led to their deaths. Namely, the husbands and fathers who controlled their lives.A history of violence, "La Constantin" also doubles...

Beatrice Cenci was the son of Francesco Cenci, an aristocrat who, due to his violent temper and immoral behaviour, had found himself in trouble with the papal justice more than once. In Rome, they lived in a mid 16th century mansion in Regola district, built over the ruins of a previous medieval fortified palace. Together with them lived also Beatrice's elder brother Giacomo, Francesco's second wife Lucrezia Petroni, and Bernardo, the young boy born...

"The Man in the Iron Mask" represents the final portion of the third installment of the 'D'Artagnan Romances'. Preceded by "The Three Musketeers", the first volume; "Twenty Years After", the second volume; "The Vicomte de Bragelonne", part one of the third volume; "Ten Years Later" part two of the third volume; and "Louise de la Vallière", part three of the third volume; "The Man in the Iron Mask" is a tale that brings to life the mystery of one...