In all, Sabatini produced 34 novels, eight short story collections, six non-fiction books, numerous uncollected short stories, and several plays.
Life as an author
After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini went to work as a writer. He wrote short stories in the 1890s, and his first novel came out in 1902. It took Sabatini roughly a quarter of a century of hard work before he attained success in 1921 with Scaramouche. The novel, an historical romance set during the French Revolution, became an international bestseller. It was followed the next year by the equally successful Captain Blood. All of his earlier books were then rushed into reprints, the most popular of which was The Sea Hawk (originally published in 1915).
Sabatini was a prolific writer, producing a new book approximately every year. With his high output and well-crafted stories he was able to maintain his popularity with the reading public through the decades that followed.[1]
In the early 1940s illness forced Sabatini to slow his prolific writing. He only published three more books before his death in 1950: King in Prussia (also known as The Birth of Mischief, 1944), Turbulent Tales (a collection of shorts, 1946), and The Gamester (1949).
Personal life
Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi, Italy, to an English-speaking mother, Anna Trafford, and Italian father, Vincenzo Sabatini. His parents were opera singers who then became teachers.[1]
At a young age Sabatini was exposed to many languages living with his grandfather in Britain. He attended school in Portugal, and as a teenager in Switzerland. By the time he was 17, when he returned to Britain to live permanently, he had become proficient in five languages. He quickly added a sixth language – English – to his linguistic collection. He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, "all the best stories are written in English".[2]
In 1905, he married Ruth Goad Dixon, the daughter of a Liverpool merchant. They had a son, Sabatini's only son, Rafael-Angelo (nicknamed Binkie). He was killed in a car crash on 1 April 1927. In 1931, Sabatini and his wife Ruth divorced. Later that year he moved from London to Clifford, Herefordshire, near Hay-on-Wye.
In 1935, he married the sculptor Christine Dixon (née Wood), his former sister-in-law. They suffered further tragedy when Christine's son, Lancelot Steele Dixon, was killed in a flying accident on the day he received his RAF wings in 1940;[3] he flew his aeroplane over his family's house, but the plane went out of control and crashed in flames right before the observers' eyes.[1]
Sabatini died in Switzerland 13 February 1950. He was buried in Adelboden, Switzerland. On his headstone his wife had written, "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad", the first line of Scaramouche.[4]
Film adaptations
Sound films
Several of his novels were made into notable films in the sound era:
The 1940 film The Sea Hawk, with Errol Flynn, is not an adaptation but a wholly new story which just used his novel’s title.
Silent films
His novel Bardelys the Magnificent was made into a famous 1926 "lost" film of the same title, directed by King Vidor, starring John Gilbert, and long viewable only in a fragment excerpted in Vidor's silent comedy Show People (1928). All but one of the reels of Bardelys were rediscovered in France in 2006, and a restoration (with production stills standing in for the missing reel) was completed in 2008.[5]
Scaramouche the King-Maker (1931), Sabatini wrote this sequel after ten years.
Captain Blood
Tales of the Brethren of the Main (a series of short stories first published in Premier Magazine from 1920–1921)[a]
Captain Blood (also known as Captain Blood: His Odyssey, 1922), in which the title character escapes from unjust slavery to become admiral of a fleet of pirate ships.[6]
Love-At-Arms: Being a narrative excerpted from the chronicles of Urbino during the dominion of the High and Mighty Messer Guidobaldo da Montefeltro (1907)
The Shame of Motley (1908)
St. Martin's Summer (also known as The Queen's Messenger, 1909)
Mistress Wilding (also known as Anthony Wilding, 1910)
The night of Holyrood – The Murder of David Rizzio
The night of Kirk O'Field – The Murder of Darnley
The night of Bertrayal – Antonio Perez and Philip II of Spain
The night of Charity – The Case of the Lady Alice Lisle
The night of Massacre – The Story of the Saint Bartholomew
The night of Witchcraft – Louis XIV and Madame De Montespan
The night of Gems – The "Affairs" Of The Queen's Necklace
The night of Terror – The Drownings at Nantes Under Carrier
The night of Nuptials – Charles The Bold And Sapphira Danvelt
The night of Stranglers – Govanna of Naples And Andreas of Hungary
The night of Hate – The Murder of the Duke of Gandia
The night of Escape – Casanova's Escape From The Piombi
The night of Masquerade – The Assassination of Gustavus III of Sweden
The Historical Nights' Entertainment – Series 2 (1919)[e]
The absolution – Affonso Henriques, first king of Portugal
The false Demetrius – Boris Godunov and the pretended son of Ivan the Terrible
The hermosa fembra – an episode of the Inquisition in Seville
The pastry-cook of Madrigal – the story of the false Sebastian of Portugal
The end of the "vert galant" – the assassination of Henry IV
The barren wooing – the murder of Amy Robsart
Sir Judas – the betrayal of Sir Walter Raleigh
His Insolence of Buckingham – George Villiers' courtship of Anne of Austria
The path of exile – the fall of Lord Clarendon
The tragedy of Herrenhausen – Count Philip Königsmark and the Princess Sophia Dorothea
The tyrannicide – Charlotte Corday and Jean Paul Marat
The Historical Nights' Entertainment – Series 3 (1938)[e]
The king's conscience – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Jane the queen – The Lady Jane Grey
The 'crooked carcase' – Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex
The forbidden fruit – The Marriage of the Lady Arabella Stuart
The merchant's daughter – Catherine de' Medici and the Guises
The king of Paris – The Assassination of Henri de Guise
The tragedy of Madame – The End of Henriette d'Angleterre
The vagabond queen – Christine of Sweden and the Murder of Monaldeschi
The queen's gambit – Maria-Theresa and the Elector of Bavaria
The secret adversary – The Rise and Fall of Johann Frederich Struensee
Madam Resourceful – Catherine of Russia and Poniatowski
The victor of vendémiaire – Barras' Account of Bonaparte's Courtship of La Montansier
Heroic Lives (1934)
Notes
^Most of the stories were woven together by the author to form Captain Blood, and two that were not were included in Captain Blood Returns.
^ abN.B. Captain Blood Returns and The Fortunes of Captain Blood are not sequels, but collections of short stories set entirely within the timeframe of the original novel.
^One of the stories from this collection, "The Treasure Ship", was reprinted as a standalone paperback in 2004.
^Includes several stories about Alessandro Cagliostro, and one connected to Captain Blood.
^ abcThe Historical Nights' Entertainment stories are 'factions' – truth so far as anyone knows it, embellished with imagination. Some are actually apocryphal, not even history.
^Knight, Jesse F.; Darley, Stephen (2010). The Last of the Great Swashbucklers: A Bio-Bibliography of Rafael Sabatini. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll. ISBN978-1-58456279-5.
