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Basalmo, the Magician, or, The Memoirs of a Physician: The Enigmatic Pursuit of Power and Knowledge
A historical romance set in the period of King Louis XV relating the trials and tribulations of the court and life in this time. A wonderfully written and interesting novel with a historical background.
340 pages, Paperback
Published February 15, 2024
5 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Alexandre Dumas
6,893 books12.5k followersThis note regards Alexandre Dumas, père, the father of Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). For the son, see Alexandre Dumas fils.
Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso
Alexandre Dumas père, born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was a towering figure of 19th-century French literature whose historical novels and adventure tales earned global renown. Best known for The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and other swashbuckling epics, Dumas crafted stories filled with daring heroes, dramatic twists, and vivid historical backdrops. His works, often serialized and immensely popular with the public, helped shape the modern adventure genre and remain enduring staples of world literature.
Dumas was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a celebrated general in Revolutionary France and the highest-ranking man of African descent in a European army at the time. His father’s early death left the family in poverty, but Dumas’s upbringing was nonetheless marked by strong personal ambition and a deep admiration for his father’s achievements. He moved to Paris as a young man and began his literary career writing for the theatre, quickly rising to prominence in the Romantic movement with successful plays like Henri III et sa cour and Antony.
In the 1840s, Dumas turned increasingly toward prose fiction, particularly serialized novels, which reached vast audiences through French newspapers. His collaboration with Auguste Maquet, a skilled plotter and historian, proved fruitful. While Maquet drafted outlines and conducted research, Dumas infused the narratives with flair, dialogue, and color. The result was a string of literary triumphs, including The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, both published in 1844. These novels exemplified Dumas’s flair for suspenseful pacing, memorable characters, and grand themes of justice, loyalty, and revenge.
The D’Artagnan Romances—The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte of Bragelonne—cemented his fame. They follow the adventures of the titular Gascon hero and his comrades Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, blending historical fact and fiction into richly imagined narratives. The Count of Monte Cristo offered a darker, more introspective tale of betrayal and retribution, with intricate plotting and a deeply philosophical core.
Dumas was also active in journalism and theater. He founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris, which staged dramatizations of his own novels. A prolific and energetic writer, he is estimated to have written or co-written over 100,000 pages of fiction, plays, memoirs, travel books, and essays. He also had a strong interest in food and published a massive culinary encyclopedia, Le Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine, filled with recipes, anecdotes, and reflections on gastronomy.
Despite his enormous success, Dumas was frequently plagued by financial troubles. He led a lavish lifestyle, building the ornate Château de Monte-Cristo near Paris, employing large staffs, and supporting many friends and relatives. His generosity and appetite for life often outpaced his income, leading to mounting debts. Still, his creative drive rarely waned.
Dumas’s mixed-race background was a source of both pride and tension in his life. He was outspoken about his heritage and used his platform to address race and injustice. In his novel Georges, he explored issues of colonialism and identity through a Creole protagonist. Though he encountered racism, he refused to be silenced, famously replying to a racial insult by pointing to his ancestry and achievements with dignity and wit.
Later in life, Dumas continued writing and traveling, spending time in Belgium, Italy, and Russia. He supported nationalist causes, particularly Italian unification, and even founded a newspaper to advocate for Giuseppe Garibaldi. Though his popularity waned somewhat in his final years, his literary legacy grew steadily. He wrote in a style that was accessible, entertaining, and emotionally reso
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 24, 2023
4.5 ☆
With this book of two tomes (700 pages each), Dumas sets his foot well into the series of events that lead to the French Revolution!
What can I say about it? Secret societies, conspiracies everywhere, both funny and serious moments, magic, alchemy, gold transmutation, vendettas, tragedies and romances as good as Romeo and Juliet... this story has absolutely everything and it is SO UNDERRATED compared to the rest of the author's books!
There are amazing characters: the naive and young philosopher Gilbert, a really strong willed French young man who does things such as walking days and days to Paris from his further-away village in order to seek himself a future, luckily being taken care by Rousseau (...I still can't get over the fact Dumas made Rousseau a character in the book). Him, Gilbert, is deeply in love with Andree of Taverney, a noble 16-yo girl from the decaying barony of the Maison-Rouge, a house whose current baron is ashamed of.
There's also the Duke de Richelieu (descendant of the well-known Cardinal Richelieu, the major antagonist of The Three Musketeers, also from Dumas); he's such a witty man. He can always be seen to have fun with people, mostly from the royal palace, talking with a sharp tongue and sharing his ideas.
Another character, Nicole, is without doubt my favorite female character in the book: a strong 16 year old young woman that, despite her position both in the society and as a minor character in the story, manages to shine with her personality and have a pretty amazing arc! Additionally, the interaction between Nicole and Richelieu has some big and unexpected repercussions for the rest of the story.
And there's of course, the titular character:
-Joseph Balsamo-
Also known as Cagliostro, the Count of Fénix, Acharat... yes.
Guy has many names.
"Oh! duke, we sorcerers change our name in each generation. Now, in 1725 names ending in us, os or as, were the fashion; and I should not be surprised if, at that time, I had been seized with the whim of bartering my name for some Latin or Greek one.”
I like the funny words of this magic man.
I like the magic man.
Raised by his master and father figure Althotas, Balsamo is a cunning 30-something years old (or several-thousand years, if you believe him) man dedicated to the study of the occult, but most importantly, the using of deceivery.
Rightfully earning the title of protagonist, he’s probably the most interesting character in the book. Joseph Balsamo is someone who doesn’t care to use any method, manipulation or tricks he deems necessary to get what he wants:
To overthrow the monarchy and give happiness to the people.
He puts women and men to sleep, uses hypnosis and divination to get answers to all sort of questions, climbs to the top of a secret society, plays with both sides (the conspirators, and their targets), mingles with politics and the nobility to gain favors, and many, many more things that make him seem invincible... if it wasn’t for his Achilles' heel: the love of Lorenza.
“I have already told you, Balsamo,” exclaimed Lorenza, “that no prison can hold a captive forever, especially when the love of liberty is aided by hatred of the tyrant!”
Lorenza Feliciani is an Italian young woman from Rome, forever in captivity of the magician who’s desperate for her love. She’s most of the time asleep, as this lets Balsamo have her under his control and have the woman as an ally in his experiments. Otherwise, she’s superstitious, believes that science is a crime, and love a sin. She's also scared of the magician and is capable of running away, or even killing herself, to be free from the ruined house where she’s trapped.
Probably one of my favorite moments was the conversation between J. Balsamo and his old master Althotas, who seeks in a desperate frenzy for the elixir of life which, according to his theory, will make him live forever.
It was both amazing and so funny to read their clashing dialogue. Their views of the world and ideals are SO different from each other (again, Dumas dialogue writing skills is my absolute favorite thing from his stories and I always have a blast reading them!)
“Ah! the French will then be free?”
“All.” exclaimed Balsamo.
“There will then be in France thirty millions of free men?”
“Yes”
“And among those thirty millions of free men, has it never occurred to you that there might be one, with a little more brains than the rest, who, some fine morning, will seize on the liberty of the twenty-nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, in order that he might have a little more liberty himself?”
“Certainly men will be equal, equal before the law.” said Balsamo.
“And before death, fool? before death, that law of laws, will they be equal, when one shall die at three days old and another at one hundred years? Equal? Men equal as long as they are subject to death? Oh fool, tin-ice sodden fool!”
“Fool! No one has discovered the elixir of life; therefore no one will discover it! By that mode of reasoning we should never have made any discoveries. But do you think that all discoveries are new things, inventions? Far from it, they are forgotten things found again. Why should things, once found, be forgotten? Because life is too short for the discoverer to draw from his discovery all the deductions which belong to it.”
♡
The writing: as I said before each tome is over 700 pages long BUT is super, SUPER EASY to read! I think a good dialogue makes most of it, and Alexandre Dumas does this excellently. Everything is fast-paced, and the varied point of views make the reading really exciting as one doesn’t know what character could be coming next before flipping the page towards the following chapter, and at the same time making one wonder what the rest of them would be doing while reading it.
♡
Again, this book is extremely underrated, getting overshadowed by the equally good Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers and I wish more people read this one.
Next one is "The Queen's Necklace". I’m ready to see more about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the two characters that imo had little time on the pages and are probably going to earn a more protagonic role in this next story.
With this book of two tomes (700 pages each), Dumas sets his foot well into the series of events that lead to the French Revolution!
What can I say about it? Secret societies, conspiracies everywhere, both funny and serious moments, magic, alchemy, gold transmutation, vendettas, tragedies and romances as good as Romeo and Juliet... this story has absolutely everything and it is SO UNDERRATED compared to the rest of the author's books!
There are amazing characters: the naive and young philosopher Gilbert, a really strong willed French young man who does things such as walking days and days to Paris from his further-away village in order to seek himself a future, luckily being taken care by Rousseau (...I still can't get over the fact Dumas made Rousseau a character in the book). Him, Gilbert, is deeply in love with Andree of Taverney, a noble 16-yo girl from the decaying barony of the Maison-Rouge, a house whose current baron is ashamed of.
There's also the Duke de Richelieu (descendant of the well-known Cardinal Richelieu, the major antagonist of The Three Musketeers, also from Dumas); he's such a witty man. He can always be seen to have fun with people, mostly from the royal palace, talking with a sharp tongue and sharing his ideas.
Another character, Nicole, is without doubt my favorite female character in the book: a strong 16 year old young woman that, despite her position both in the society and as a minor character in the story, manages to shine with her personality and have a pretty amazing arc! Additionally, the interaction between Nicole and Richelieu has some big and unexpected repercussions for the rest of the story.
And there's of course, the titular character:
-Joseph Balsamo-
Also known as Cagliostro, the Count of Fénix, Acharat... yes.
Guy has many names.
"Oh! duke, we sorcerers change our name in each generation. Now, in 1725 names ending in us, os or as, were the fashion; and I should not be surprised if, at that time, I had been seized with the whim of bartering my name for some Latin or Greek one.”
I like the funny words of this magic man.
I like the magic man.
Raised by his master and father figure Althotas, Balsamo is a cunning 30-something years old (or several-thousand years, if you believe him) man dedicated to the study of the occult, but most importantly, the using of deceivery.
Rightfully earning the title of protagonist, he’s probably the most interesting character in the book. Joseph Balsamo is someone who doesn’t care to use any method, manipulation or tricks he deems necessary to get what he wants:
To overthrow the monarchy and give happiness to the people.
He puts women and men to sleep, uses hypnosis and divination to get answers to all sort of questions, climbs to the top of a secret society, plays with both sides (the conspirators, and their targets), mingles with politics and the nobility to gain favors, and many, many more things that make him seem invincible... if it wasn’t for his Achilles' heel: the love of Lorenza.
“I have already told you, Balsamo,” exclaimed Lorenza, “that no prison can hold a captive forever, especially when the love of liberty is aided by hatred of the tyrant!”
Lorenza Feliciani is an Italian young woman from Rome, forever in captivity of the magician who’s desperate for her love. She’s most of the time asleep, as this lets Balsamo have her under his control and have the woman as an ally in his experiments. Otherwise, she’s superstitious, believes that science is a crime, and love a sin. She's also scared of the magician and is capable of running away, or even killing herself, to be free from the ruined house where she’s trapped.
Probably one of my favorite moments was the conversation between J. Balsamo and his old master Althotas, who seeks in a desperate frenzy for the elixir of life which, according to his theory, will make him live forever.
It was both amazing and so funny to read their clashing dialogue. Their views of the world and ideals are SO different from each other (again, Dumas dialogue writing skills is my absolute favorite thing from his stories and I always have a blast reading them!)
“Ah! the French will then be free?”
“All.” exclaimed Balsamo.
“There will then be in France thirty millions of free men?”
“Yes”
“And among those thirty millions of free men, has it never occurred to you that there might be one, with a little more brains than the rest, who, some fine morning, will seize on the liberty of the twenty-nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, in order that he might have a little more liberty himself?”
“Certainly men will be equal, equal before the law.” said Balsamo.
“And before death, fool? before death, that law of laws, will they be equal, when one shall die at three days old and another at one hundred years? Equal? Men equal as long as they are subject to death? Oh fool, tin-ice sodden fool!”
“Fool! No one has discovered the elixir of life; therefore no one will discover it! By that mode of reasoning we should never have made any discoveries. But do you think that all discoveries are new things, inventions? Far from it, they are forgotten things found again. Why should things, once found, be forgotten? Because life is too short for the discoverer to draw from his discovery all the deductions which belong to it.”
♡
The writing: as I said before each tome is over 700 pages long BUT is super, SUPER EASY to read! I think a good dialogue makes most of it, and Alexandre Dumas does this excellently. Everything is fast-paced, and the varied point of views make the reading really exciting as one doesn’t know what character could be coming next before flipping the page towards the following chapter, and at the same time making one wonder what the rest of them would be doing while reading it.
♡
Again, this book is extremely underrated, getting overshadowed by the equally good Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers and I wish more people read this one.
Next one is "The Queen's Necklace". I’m ready to see more about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the two characters that imo had little time on the pages and are probably going to earn a more protagonic role in this next story.
July 9, 2014
The author also wrote the Three Musketeers and Robinhood. It is full of fun crap like secret societies and magic (mesmerism and "sleep seeing") and is also a snarky report of the French gentry before the revolution.
February 17, 2024
Dnf at 70% as was too disturbing lol, may come back to it later
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews