These newly reproduced volumes, Memoirs of a Physician and Joseph Balsamo, were digitized from an English translation of the multi-volume Memoirs of a Physician By Dumas dating to the late 19th Century - a translation which omits a substantial part of the story - extending the relationship between Gilbert and Andree (or non-relationship to be exact). Details are left out of the second volume, and then - some 240 pages at the end are omitted. Ironically, Dumas writes about sex in a most delicately suggestive fashion - which is to say that he utterly avoids being explicit. I know the whole story (or soon will) because I interloaned through my library the single complete English translation, in 3 volumes, dated 1893, published by Little, Brown and Company, after a translation published by Dent in England. This set of volumes is becoming rare - and needs to be reprinted [write to Dover Publications about it!], so that the wonderful, unabridged composition of Alexandre Dumas is not lost. The Boomer/Bibliobazaar volumes are inadequate. What happens is that, under a spell by Balsamo for the third time - and escaping ravishment by Louis XV because he believes she is dead (though the king leaves her partially nude, as she was barely clothed to begin with, Andree is finally ravished (this is rape; she is unconscious) by Gilbert, who has seen the spells induced by Balsamo before. This, nor the full extent of the king's attempt - from which Gilbert is actually prepared to defend Andree - is included. This facet of the novel is nearly omitted. Then, in the material left out at the end - there is a note which gives the reader no idea that some 240 pages are missing!! - Andree is pregnant as a result. I realized something was missing, when I got to Ange Pitou, in the Marie Antionette series - there, Gilbert has a son in his young teens! It is not explained how that son came to be. The explanation is in the original Memoirs, but entirely omitted from the 2006 or so reprints - as it was from most translations into English. I will not attempt to go continue as to what was left out - arrangements have to be made for Andree's unexplained disappearance to give birth, and as is typical with Dumas, there are numerous twists and interactions among many of the characters, from Rousseau and Balsamo, to the king and the duke, to the Taverney family. I have not finished the 240 pages. I began reading them in French (which I studied in high school) - the whole Memoirs can be found online in French. I got over half way through, but now that I have the unabridged novel from a distant library, I am reading the end (and picking up some intermediate parts - like the scene where Balsamo left Andree in a trance, after which the king tried to seduce her, and then the crime took place. Without this part of the novel, the whole essence of Gilbert's character is lost; the whole theme of criminality; the deeper counterbalance between Andree and Gilbert, and by extension, between the three Taverney family members, and other characters is lost. Please militate for the reprinting of the original Dumas novel; do not be satisfied with these expurgated volumes! There are hints elsewhere that something is missing, if you read these volumes. For instance, in the Queen's Necklace, Balsamo and Nicole (Gilbert's old girl friend) talk about Gilbert, and Balsamo says that he has been killed. Elsewhere, it comes out that Phillip may have killed Gilbert. Is he dead? No, because he appears in Ange Pitou as a principal character. There clearly is friction between Andree and Gilbert in this novel. And of course, there is the last (or second to last if you count the Knight of Maison Rouge) volume of the MA romances - the Countess of Charny - who is Andree Taverney.

Memoirs of a Physician begins where Joseph Balsamo left off as all Paris panics after a fireworks display goes awry and Andrée is almost crushed to death beneath the mob. Andrée's brother Phillip desperately searches for her and is feared dead - until she is returned unharmed to her family by the mysterious Balsamo. Lower born Gilbert is still madly in love with Andrée and he follows her (working as a gardener) when she is taken into service by Marie Antoinette. Madame DuBarry continues her schemes, as does the mysterious Balsamo working with the Freemasons to stir unrest against the monarchy and lustful Louis XV takes one look at the beauteous Andrée and he plots with her father to make her his latest conquest.

Actually, there's a whole lot more to the story than that but this is Dumas and it would take another novel to try to outline the story better. Suffice it to say that as in the first book in this series, the opulence and shenanigans of the French Court, the manipulations of the politicians, Balsamo's hypnotic control over his wife Lorenza and Andrée, secret rooms and hidden staircases, a mad desire by Balsamo's master to obtain the one horrific ingredient needed to complete his elixir of eternal life culminates in a thoroughly unputdownable tale that had me reading well into the wee hours of the morning. I especially loved Gilbert's antics (ROFL, Hollywood would have a field day with this) as he spied on Andrée and the way Dumas used her contempt of his lower status as a way to emphasize the growing disparity between the classes. Next up in the series, The Queen's Necklace (1902).

Side note on the first two books in this series - as I understand it they were originally published in one volume called Memoirs of a Physician and are now published separately as Joseph Balsamo and Memoirs of a Physician. I've noticed some complaints from other reviewers on the quality of editing and translation of some of these newly published editions and went searching for an older used copy and was quite happy with that. ( )

1373 The Memoirs of a Physician, by Alexandre Dumas (read 9 Dec 1975) This novel takes up right where Joseph Balsamo leaves off--the accident from the fireworks on May 31, 1770, in honor of Marie Antoinette, and slowly winds thru the intrigues of Madame DuBarry and of the Duc de Richelieu. It is usually very boring. At the end the murder of Lorenzo by Althotas--who is seeking the last three drops of bood of an unmarried female to complete his elixir of life--and the self-immolation of Althotas and the condemnation of Balsamo are described with the usual Dumas flair. But then "the Editor" skips a bunch of chapters describing Andree's entry into a convent and Philip & Gilbert going to America. This I felt a gross deception, since I never knowingly read abridged books. ( )