Friday Forgotten (or Overlooked) Book:CAPTAIN BLOOD (1922) by Rafael Sabatini

I can't help it. I love a good, florid, swash and buckle story. Always have. I've been hooked ever since I read Sabatini's THE SEA HAWK years ago. Rafael Sabatini is, to my mind, the king of this kind of idealized adventure tale full of swordplay and good manners.

Read it a few years ago and wrote about it then, so this is an updated review of a book I absolutely adore and can't recommend enough. 

You all know that CAPTAIN BLOOD was turned into an instant classic film starring Errol Flynn back in the day when swashbuckling was taken seriously. But the book is just as good as the film. In fact, it adds a certain level of richness and zest to the familiar plot. Rafael Sabatini, writing in the romantic, flamboyant style of the 19th century had a way with words that today might seem anachronistic or unintentionally humorous. But I suspend my disbelief, curb my 'sophisticated, modern' tastes and throw myself wholeheartedly into Sabatini's dashing world where men were men, honor was a big deal and swordplay was a given. True, women of a certain class didn't have much to do but cling, faint and stand around looking beautiful (really, how much could anyone be expected to do while wearing a cumbersome gown made of acres of fabric with all that bound-in-place underpinning - it was fortunate they could breathe) but one can't have everything. I still love these tales.

Rafael Sabatini (1875 - 1950)

I've read a bit about Sabatini's life and know that for all the success he achieved, he lived though two dreadful tragedies which no human being should ever have to endure:

His beloved son died in an automobile crash on his way back to their home and Sabatini came upon the crash site, his son's body on the road. But that's not all. The son of his second wife died in a plane crash right before his mother and step-father's very eyes, as he piloted his own plane. 

(Tell me the universe makes any kind of rational sense.)

The first class adventure stories Sabatini concocted pale in comparison to this horrific set of real-life coincidences, but maybe he was able to lose himself in his writing.

Captain Blood cover illustration by N.C. Wyeth

'Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater.'

So (deceptively quiet and bucolic) begins CAPTAIN BLOOD, a rip-roaring yarn of betrayal, action on the high seas, courtly gentlemen, beautiful women, pirate derring-do, battles to the death, sword play, torture, flowery words, love, unwashed bodies and all around earthy good stuff. 

A physician and gentleman living in 18th century England, Irishman Peter Blood is a good, honorable man bound to his duties. In the aftermath of a series of unfortunate events, he is unjustly arrested, brought to 'trial' and sentenced to be transported as a slave to the Caribbean island of Jamaica.

Once there, the extreme hardships he and his fellow slaves must endure turn them into wounded, broken men willing to do anything to escape. Most heinous is the grievous treatment they endure at the hands of the odious Colonel Bishop, the land baron who 'owns' them. Peter Blood alone has the 'easier' time of it, since he is a doctor and the island's gout-ridden governor takes a liking to him.

Bishop's niece Arabella (who, in sympathy, had insisted her uncle buy Blood at the slave market) takes a liking to Blood's stalwart demeanor. Though he is seen as nothing but a slave she comes to recognize his worth as a man and a gentleman. He, in turn, is taken with her beauty, kindness and high spirit. 

Soon, and by another series of occurrences - all splendidly written, I might add - Blood and his fellow slaves survive a surprise attack on the island by a blood-thirsty band of Spanish pirates who take no quarter and commit horrendous acts of brutality upon the defenseless islanders. (So, in this instance, the English are bad enough, but the Spanish are worse.)

These thrilling exploits are crafted by a master hand. I LOVED these pages as Blood and his band of ragged fellows not only survive but turn the tables on the rampaging Spanish AND the cruel Colonel Bishop. Hooray!

Once Blood, through cleverness, courage and determination is able to gather about him a fighting band of men - not to mention, a ship - he becomes Captain Peter Blood scourge of the Caribbean. 

Peter Blood is uneasy in his adopted 'trade' but aware of the necessity for he is, in truth, an outlaw - a man without a country. Yet this truth does not sit easy on Blood's shoulders. When he, by chance runs into Arabella Bishop again after three years of plying his trade in the Caribbean, he is stung when she calls him a 'thief and a pirate.'

'Captain Blood...did not hear anything save the echo of those cruel words which had dubbed him thief and pirate.

Thief and pirate!

It is an odd fact of human nature that a man may for years possess the knowledge that a certain thing must be of a certain fashion, and yet be shocked to discover through his own senses that the fact is in perfect harmony with his beliefs. When first, three years ago, at Tortuga he had been urged upon the adventurer's course which he had followed ever since, he had known in what opinion Arabella Bishop must hold him if he succumbed. Only the conviction that already she was forever lost to him, by introducing a certain desperate recklessness into his soul, had supplied the final impulse to drive him upon his rover's course.

That he should ever meet her again had not entered his calculations, had found no place in his dreams.'

How Peter Blood's daring exploits serve to shape the man and the story and how it all contrives to make for a happy ending well, you will have to read CAPTAIN BLOOD to find out. If you're in the mood for a 'thumping good read', then this is the book for you. 

Rafael Sabatini: too good to be overlooked or forgotten.

Todd Mason is doing hosting duties for Patricia Abbott this week at his blog, Sweet Freedom. Don't forget to check in to see what other forgotten or overlooked books other bloggers are talking about today.