Alexandre Dumas 
Joseph Balsamo 

Joseph Balsamo is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, inspired by the life and personality of Giuseppe Balsamo, commonly referred to as Count Alessandro di Cagliostro. It is the first of six books in Dumas’ Marie Antoinette series and is followed by Memoirs of a Physician, The Queen’s Necklace, Taking the Bastille, The Countess de Charny, and Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, all coming soon from Hawthorne. Joseph Balsamo appeared in serial form in La Presse between 1846 and 1849. This is an edited reprint of the unabridged 1902 translation published by P.F. Collier and Son.