Passed Time - John Marchalonis and The Three Musketeers: "This is a Good Book"

John Marchalonis and The Three Musketeers: "This is a Good Book"

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Marchalonis John drawingw Ah, from the mouths of babes. Some book reviews are fun to read, providing a short summary of the pleasure to come. Other book reviews are drawn out, making one wonder if the critic is intent on writing their own book. Leave it to a child to keep it short and sweet.

When critiquing Alexandre Dumas' (1802-1870) The Three Musketeers, John Marchalonis simply wrote, "This Is A Good Book." He embellished by attempting to recreate one of the Maurice Leloir (1853-1940) illustrations.* Although Marchalonis did not finish his rendition, it appears to be an attempt to copy the illustration captioned "D'Artagnan took every smile for an insult" found between pages 16 and 17. A pencil drawing of a building surfaces later in the book, but it appears to have no correlating Leloir illustration. Marchalonis John engravingw

Marchalonis John cover Marchalonis' edition of The Three Musketeers was published by Thomas Y. Crowell Company in 1901. Given that the book is 115 years old, it has obviously passed through many hands. In fact, the inscription declaring this "a good book" was clearly written by two different people, but Marchalonis' name is the only identification in the book. Marchalonis John inscriptionw

Briefly, I researched John Marchalonis, hoping to pin down the identity of the young book critic. A plethora of articles pop up about immunologist John J. Marchalonis (died 2007) originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although he is too young to have been the book's original owner, perhaps it passed from father to son?

After an online search in which dozens of scientific articles written by Dr. Marchalonis and memorials dedicated to him emerge, I finally found two other men with the name John Marchalonis. Unfortunately, the information readily available about them is vague. The older Marchalonis was born between 1837 and 1897 in Lithuania. He was a coal miner who had a son named John Marchalonis born somewhere and sometime between 1872 and 1932.**

Any of these men might have been this budding artist and book critic. Sure enough, Marchalonis is right--This is a good book. 115 years ago...Best, Pat

* Some sources claim Leloir was born in 1851, others claim 1853. I tried to verify with a reliable source but came up with nothing definitive. Your guess is as good as mine...maybe a reader can clear it up?

** Marchalonis family at Geni.com (now owned by MyHeritage.com) Marchalonis John name inscriptionw

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Maurice Leloir (1851-1940) - French Illustrator

A watercolorist, illustrator, engraver and historical painter, Maurice Leloir was born in Paris into a family of well-known artists. His formal training Leloir received with his father historical painter Jean-Baptiste Auguste Leloir, his mother watercolorist Héloïse Colin and his older brother Alexander-Louis Leloir.

Maurice Leloir and other illustrators of Rare Picture Books as well as Original Signed Illustrations at Childscapes.com

ILLUSTRATORS & AUTHORS Guy Arnoux Cicely Mary Barker Ivan Bilibin My Bookhouse Eleanor Vere Boyle Margaret Wise Brown Laurent deBrunhoff Randolph Caldecott Lewis Carroll Chromolithography Collector's Page Walter Crane W.W. Denslow Edward Detmold J. H. Dowd Caroline Ruth Eger Gorey, Edward Kate Greenaway Michael Hague David Hockney Brian Jacques JOB Pierre Joubert Carl Larsson Edy Legrand Maurice Leloir C.S.

Renowned Immunologist John J. Marchalonis Dies

Renowned immunologist John J. "Jack" Marchalonis, professor of microbiology and immunology, pathology, medicine and former chairman of the department of microbiology and immunology (now the department of immunobiology) at The University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, passed away on June 22. Marchalonis was 66 years old.