The Dumas Club : The Ninth Gate - El club Dumas or La sombra de Richelieu

Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Vintage

2000

336 páginas

11h 12m

ISBN-13: 9781860467684

What could possibly be the connection between an allegedly authentic manuscript of a chapter from Dumas' The Three Musketeers and a 17th century occult text, a manual for invoking the devil, only one copy of which is believed to have survived after its was publisher was burnt at the stake? Gin-swilling book-hunter Lucas Corso is hired to authenticate the Dumas manuscript. At the same time, Varo Borja, the owner of an occult text, The Nine Doors, persuades him to investigate two further editions of the book known to be in collections in Sintra and Paris. As Corso digs into the mystery, the twilight world of antiquarian bookselling, a milieu of ruthless predators, unfolds. Corso finds himself sharing a stage with a cast of characters who seem to have walked straight off the pages of a Dumas novel. And Corso appears to have been assigned the role of D'Artagnan.

The story follows the adventures of a book dealer, Lucas Corso, who is hired to authenticate a rare manuscript by Alexandre Dumas, père. Corso's investigation leads him to seek out two copies of a (fictional) rare book known as De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis ("Of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows"). Corso encounters a host of intriguing characters on his journey of investigation, including devil worshippers, obsessed bibliophiles and a hypnotically enticing femme fatale. Corso's travels take him to Madrid (Spain), Sintra (Portugal), Paris (France), and Toledo (Spain).

The Club Dumas is full of details ranging from the working habits of Alexandre Dumas to how one might forge a 17th-century text, as well as insight into demonology.

[Film Tie-In of 'The Dumas Club']:
Enrique Taillefer is found hanging from a light fitting by the silk belt of his own dressing gown. Beneath him, open on the floor, lies a copy of Alexander Dumas's 'The Viscount Of Bragelonne'. Enrique had just sold a manuscript chapter of Dumas's 'The Three Musketeers' to a bookseller. But Enrique's beautiful widow, Liana, will do almost anything to recover it.

Lucas Corso, an obsessional book hunter, is asked to authenticate the Dumas manuscript. He takes it to Boris Balkan, an expert on the nineteenth century novel, who is to play Watson to Corso's Holmes. At the same time, Corso hears of another text owned by one of Spain's wealthiest dealers, which purports to contain instructions on how to invoke the Devil and nine engravings attributed to the hand of Lucifer himself.

Side-tracked from the Dumas script, but somehow persuaded by Boris Balkan that there may be some occult link between the two texts, Corso sets out on a hunt that takes him to Sintra and Paris and right to the centre of a dangerous drama which bears all the hallmarks of a Dumas serial - with Corso as a latterday D'Artagnan.

Based on the novel 'The Dumas Club' and the film of the same name, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner...
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_Dumas
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Pérez-Reverte
https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninth_Gate
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0142688/