When reading The Three Musketeers from a Grolier Classics’ book I found the older writing style to be similar to that of A Tale of Two Cities and Persuasion, I mean there are not many years between them. But what made this one stand out was its focus on dialogue. A possible reason was mentioned in the history of its making. The book publishers of his time, it wasn’t specific who, would pay the author based on the number of lines of dialogue. Initially, it is said his drafts/early published sections of the book used many one-syllable words in a conversation to maximize profit. The publishers insisted he stop. However, even if the dialogue was changed to mostly long-ish sentences, he still wrote dialogue-heavy.
The plot and story of the movie, as is common, ignored much of the book (I’m talking of the 1993 version). Honestly, you could almost say the only part they kept was the four musketeers and a few relationships. Funny enough D’Artagnan and Captain Rochefort in the movie are enemies, but in the book, they become good friends at the end. Worst of all, the Cardinal never designed a coup against the king. The book has more focus on Queen Anne then the king. And Milady De Winter in the book tries to kill D’Artagnan.
The book has a slow, almost pointless beginning when you first read it. But when you get into the meat of the story it becomes quite enthralling.