Saturday, October 14th, 1939
LOST DUMAS MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN TURIN
Professor Claims Discovery of Unknown “Musketeer” Serial Set in Savoy During Richelieu’s Wars
From Our Literary Correspondent
London, Friday.
Considerable excitement has arisen in literary circles following the announcement by Professor Winston Farthingdale, Chair of Romantic Literature at the University of North Durham, and salacious part time novelist, that he has uncovered what may prove to be a previously unknown historical serial by Alexandre Dumas père.
The manuscript, discovered earlier this year in Turin during cataloguing work in the archives of the long-declined House of Castellamonte, is said to comprise several hundred pages of fading Italian and French text chronicling intrigue, duels, espionage, and political violence in the Duchy of Savoy during the turbulent years of Cardinal Richelieu’s ascendancy.
Professor Farthingdale, speaking yesterday before the Royal Society of Letters, described the work as:
“A darker and more intimate companion to The Three Musketeers — less concerned with the grandeur of France than with the candlelit conspiracies of border courts, where Spanish agents, Savoyard nobles, mercenaries, churchmen, and assassins crossed blades beneath the shadow of the Alps.”
The manuscript bears the provisional title Savoy, 1630, though several pages are missing and numerous passages appear incomplete or damaged by damp and smoke. According to Professor Farthingdale, the text was hidden within a false compartment behind ecclesiastical account books during the Napoleonic occupation of Piedmont.
DUELS, MASKS, AND INTRIGUE
The story reportedly centres upon a mysterious exiled nobleman returning to Turin under an assumed identity to pursue vengeance against those who betrayed him years before. Among the dramatis personae are corrupt bishops, masked conspirators, French agents in the pay of Richelieu, Savoyard guardsmen, and a flamboyant duellist known only as The Flashing Blade.
Particular fascination has attached itself to several vividly rendered scenes said to resemble the great dramatic episodes of Dumas’s established romances:
- a midnight ambush in rain-swept alleys,
- a duel fought upon a bridge at dawn,
- a masquerade ball ending in bloodshed,
- and a violent confrontation within the ducal palace itself.
Professor Farthingdale noted that the work differs markedly from Dumas’s better-known adventures in tone:
“Savoy is colder, more suspicious, and more political. Honour itself is treated as a weapon. Even the Church is presented not merely as a moral authority, but as a hidden machinery of surveillance and power.”
QUESTIONS OF AUTHORSHIP
Not all scholars are convinced.
Certain French academics have already urged caution, noting stylistic irregularities and the unusual mixture of Italian and French narrative forms. Others suggest the manuscript may represent an abandoned collaboration, or even a later imitation composed by an unknown admirer of Dumas.
Professor Davidé Parkour of the Sorbonne remarked in Paris yesterday that:
“Until the inks, papers, and provenance are exhaustively examined, one must remain sceptical.”
Nevertheless, early excerpts privately circulated among publishers are said to possess unmistakable Dumasian flourishes: rapid dialogue, elaborate swordplay, secret identities, and richly theatrical reversals of fortune.
PUBLICATION EXPECTED
Negotiations are reportedly underway for an English translation and serialized publication following completion of authentication work. Several publishing houses are understood to have expressed considerable interest despite wartime uncertainties.
Should the manuscript prove genuine, Savoy, 1630 may rank among the most significant literary discoveries of recent years.
For now, however, the faded pages recovered from Turin offer only tantalising glimpses of a forgotten world of steel, velvet, and betrayal — where gentlemen fought by candlelight while kingdoms shifted in the dark.
