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Rare pirated edition of The Three Musketeers, printed from the original serial appearances in Le Siècle, which evidence strongly suggests pre-dates the regularly published first edition put out by Baudry in Paris in the same year. The original publication of Mousquetaires was in serial form, in the Parisian Daily Le Siècle, from March 14 to July 14, 1844. Its popularity soon eclipsed all of Dumas' previous romances. “Issue by issue of Le Siècle was hastily acquired by the piratical publishers of Brussels, and as quickly the portion of Les Trois Mousquetaires which it contained was set up by them in type; then, as sufficient to form a volume accumulated, this was given to the public. Though these copies were `interdicted for France,' being small and unobtrusive many found their way across the frontiers." (Frank Wild Reed, The Colophon New Series, Vol. III, No. 3). This set apparently found its way to Italy with an early Italian ownership inscription and bookplates. Thus the Belgian pirates used the original text (with perhaps a few typographical mishaps) as issued in the newspaper appearances. The 1844 Baudry edition, however, had revisions made by Dumas. Usually Dumas avoided revisiting his romances once they had left his hand, but in this case he wrote to the publisher who had been awarded the publication rights, "My dear Baudry, It is you who have bought the Musketeers. I should very much like to revise the proofs in a body. They have perpetrated some errors which it is important for you and for me to cause to disappear..." Frank Reed extensively analyzes the differences between the Belgium editions and those of Baudry and Calmann Lévy, (who reprinted the Baudry text) and notes that most of the early translations were made from the Belgium editions, which were considerably less expensive than the authorized French edition. He also notes that, in many instances, Dumas' revisions were not necessarily improvements on the original. The fairly extensive revising of the Baudry text by Dumas seems inevitably to have caused a delay in publication not encountered by the hasty Belgium publishers.