Apart from The Count of Monte Christo, which is sui generis, most of Dumas's novels belong to two cycles, the Three Musketeers stories and those set earlier during the religious wars in France. This volume is the first of the latter series and is usually translated into English as Marguerite de Valois, but the present version sticks to the French original (so does the recent film). It is not quite so good a book as its successor, La Femme de Monsoreau, better known in English as Chicot the Jester, but Dumas's special mixture of cloak-and-dagger intrigue, amorous tangles, historical pageantry and sheer dash is hard to resist. Neither does he veil the darker facts of history, and the account of the St Bartholomew's Eve Massacre in Paris is suitably grim. B.F.