The Man Behind the Iron Mask

by Noone, John

• ISBN13: 9780312123451
• ISBN10: 0312123450
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-09-15
• Publisher: Griffin

Summary

"For more than three hundred years the legend of 'the man in the iron mask' has held a place on the stage of human enquiry and debate. From the time of his incarceration during the reign of Louis XIV right through to our modern day, the awful fate of the man condemned to live a lifetime with his face encased in iron has inspired, depending on the era, anger, horror, pity and fascination." So opened the New York Times review of the first edition of The Man Behind the Iron Mask. John Noone's masterful account of the mystery presents all the known facts of the prisoner's existence chronologically as they have been discovered, including the famous legend immortalized in the nineteenth century by Alexander Dumas in his sequel to The Three Musketeers, and into modern times with the supposed discovery of his skeleton in an old tower in Cannes in 1977. Noone also offers his own intriguing solution to the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, telling the story of this mystery of enduring strength like no one else has.

Author Biography

John Noone lectured for ten year in the Universities of Alexandria and Kyoto before writing his first novel, The Man with the Chocolate Egg.

Table of Contents

The Prince in the Iron Mask

The Masked Prisoner

Faces Behind the Mask

More Faces

And Even More

The Man in the Velvet Mask

Two Prisoners of Consequence

The Prisoners of Pignerol

Dunkirk Connections

And Interconnections

Eustache Dauger Unmasked

The Many Faces of Eustache Dauger

The Valet in the Face-Saving Mask

Postscript

General Chronology of Events Mentioned in the Text

Detailed Chronology of Events Relative to the Life of the Iron Mask in Prison

Family Tree of Henry IV showing the Royal Houses of France and England in the Seventeenth Century

Maps

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.