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CAPTAIN_BLOOD

                                                           October 2007

Rafael Sabatini,                     Published the year after 
"Captain Blood" (1922)               his "Scaramouche" (1921)    
                                                                 SCARAMOUCHE
  Sabatini was in fine form in this
  swashbuckler about a reluctant             TREASON_FACTORY
  pirate -- a physician who, after
  being accused of treating a rebel,
  was transported to Barbados to         There's many a touch of wise
  become a slave until his escape        philosophy and plausible
  schemes are interupted by an attack    psychology here... but the quote
  by Spanish pirates -- whose ship he    that catches my attention:
  and his gang of escaping slaves
  then seize...                          "As for mademoiselle, she had risen,
                                         and was leaning forward, a hand
                                         pressed tightly to her heaving
    That premise is actually             breast, her face deathly pale, a
    pretty good-- Peter Lambourne        wild terror in her eyes."
    Wilson mentions in "Pirate
    Utopias" that this is where             p. 135, Ch. XV "The Ransom"
    a lot of pirates came from:
    if you're an escaped slave           That was back in 1922.  The heaving
    what else are you going to           bossoms of the bodice-ripper became a
    do?                                  figure of fun by the fifties or
                                         so... what's the history of this motif?
                                         Is this an early example?  Was it
                                         well-established already?

                                            A true scholarship of
                                            popular fiction would
                                            include a study of such
                                            tropes...

                                            The heaving breast;
                                            The disembodied hand;
                                            The "injury-to-the-eye motif"...


   A sequel to this book was
   published over a decade later:            A year after the Errol Flynn/
                                             Olivia de Haviland "Captain
   Rafael Sabatini                           Blood" movie in 1935...
   "The Fortunes of Captain Blood" (1936)

       These are short stories that appear
       to lie chronologically in the middle
       of the earlier novel "Captain Blood".


As I remember it, there is a
passage in the novel that goes
"And then he had many other
adventures, of which we have       It would be
no space to relate".               interesting if
                                   Sabatini had
                                   this planned out    Maybe some of
                                   in advance.         the stories were
                                                       were written first?


                                               Since "Captain Blood" ends
                                               with Blood settling down
                                               with The Woman, it would
                                               be mildly difficult to do
                                               a simple chronological sequel.

                                               I suppose you could do a
                                               "coming out of retirement"
                                               in response to some
                                               emergency.


           This 1962 popular
           library edition claims:

           "Sabatini's works are credited with
           being almost soley responsible for
           the rebirth of the historical novel."

                 That's news to me, but
                 I'll believe it, being
                 a credulous fellow.














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