An Irish physician is sentenced to slavery in the Caribbean for the crime of treating a wounded rebel — and escapes to become the most dashing pirate on the Spanish Main. Captain Blood is the purest swashbuckler ever written, and Rafael Sabatini its unrivalled master.
Peter Blood is the template for every gentleman-rogue who followed: brilliant, sardonic, honourable beneath the black flag, driven to piracy by injustice rather than greed. Sabatini gives him sea-battles, sword-fights, narrow escapes and a proud heroine to spar with, all told in prose that moves like a cutlass — fast, bright, and endlessly quotable. It was filmed with Errol Flynn and launched the whole genre of Hollywood swashbucklers; every charming pirate since, down to Jack Sparrow, is Blood’s descendant.
But Sabatini was more than a thrill-merchant. Beneath the adventure runs real anger at tyranny and real historical detail — Blood’s revolt is against the cruelty of a specific king and a specific injustice. Like The Count of Monte Cristo, it is a revenge romance with a conscience, and no book is more purely enjoyable.
This edition gathers Sabatini’s swashbucklers together with Scaramouche and The Sea-Hawk.
Read The Works of Rafael Sabatini →
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