Books: Dumas Returns

THE JOURNAL OF MADAME GIOVANNI—Alexandra Dumas—Liveright ($3).

Readers of two of the most readable books ever written—The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo—had an unusual experience this week. Seventy-three years after the death of Alexandre Dumas, his Journal of Madame Giovanni was translated for the first time into English, published for the first time in the U.S. Publishers were charmed by its vague topicality and timeliness (most of the action takes place in the South Pacific and San Francisco). Dumas fans, and readers (if such there be) who have never read...