The Three Musketeers

"Because it’s such a marvellous adventure story. It goes back to the days of chivalry in France , and I think this never loses its interest. This is a cape and sword book. A young provincial gentleman, d’Artagnan, coming to Paris with an ambition to become a musketeer—which was part of the royal guard. He fails to get in, and very early on he meets three musketeers and gets into a fight with them; he takes them on one by one and beats them all in a duel. They then strike up an inseparable bond and survive a series of death-defying scrapes, always on the side of justice against the king’s scheming courtiers. It’s such a good story, written with such dashing gusto that I don’t think people can ever get tired of it. And this stirring motto of d’Artagnan and the three musketeers, ‘All for one and one for all,’ is also something that people like the idea of: the solidarity of a team, being part of a great gang. People have always loved that."