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. His first published short story, "The Red Mask," was printed in 1898, and his first novel came out in 1902.2 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 frequent writer who published 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 from stomach cancer forced Sabatini to slow his prolific writing. He only published three more books before his death in 1950: (also known as , 1944), (a collection of short stories, 1946), and (1949).
This page is based on “Rafael Sabatini” from English Wikipedia, (r1375204701) CC BY-SA 4.0 used under the license. The original authors are listed in its page history.
Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi, Italy, to an English 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".3
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 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 - she had been married previously to Ruth's brother, Hugh Wainwright Dixon.4 They suffered further tragedy when Christine and Hugh's son, Lancelot Steele Dixon, was killed aged 23 in a flying accident on the day he received his RAF wings, on 9 April 1940;5 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.6
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 2008.12
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 to 1921)13
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.14
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)
Knight, Jesse F.; Darley, Stephen (2010). The Last of the Great Swashbucklers: A Bio-Bibliography of Rafael Sabatini. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll. ISBN 978-1-58456279-5. ↩
Shanks, Jeffrey (2013). "History, Horror, and Heroic Fantasy: Robert E. Howard and the Creation of the Sword-and-Sorcery Subgenre". In Hoppenstand, Gary (ed.). Pulp Fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. Salem Press. p. 6. ISBN 9781429838436. ↩
Stableford, Brian (2009). "Powers, Tim". The A to Z of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 272. ISBN 0-8108-5397-3. ↩
N.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. ↩↩2
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. ↩
Who's Who 1926. London: The Macmillan Company. 1926. pp. 2546, 2861. Retrieved 7 July 2016. ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5
Lachman, Marvin (2014). The villainous stage : crime plays on Broadway and in the West End. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-9534-4. OCLC903807427. ↩
The Historical Nights' Entertainment stories are 'factions' – truth so far as anyone knows it, embellished with imagination. Some are actually apocryphal, not even history. ↩↩2↩3
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. His first published short story, "The Red Mask," was printed in 1898, and his first novel came out in 1902.2 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 frequent writer who published 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 from stomach cancer 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 short stories, 1946), and The Gamester (1949).
Personal life
Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi, Italy, to an English 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".3
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 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 - she had been married previously to Ruth's brother, Hugh Wainwright Dixon.4 They suffered further tragedy when Christine and Hugh's son, Lancelot Steele Dixon, was killed aged 23 in a flying accident on the day he received his RAF wings, on 9 April 1940;5 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.6
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 2008.12
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 to 1921)13
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.14
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)
Knight, Jesse F.; Darley, Stephen (2010). The Last of the Great Swashbucklers: A Bio-Bibliography of Rafael Sabatini. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll. ISBN 978-1-58456279-5. ↩
Shanks, Jeffrey (2013). "History, Horror, and Heroic Fantasy: Robert E. Howard and the Creation of the Sword-and-Sorcery Subgenre". In Hoppenstand, Gary (ed.). Pulp Fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. Salem Press. p. 6. ISBN 9781429838436. ↩
Stableford, Brian (2009). "Powers, Tim". The A to Z of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 272. ISBN 0-8108-5397-3. ↩
N.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. ↩↩2
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. ↩
Who's Who 1926. London: The Macmillan Company. 1926. pp. 2546, 2861. Retrieved 7 July 2016. ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5
Lachman, Marvin (2014). The villainous stage : crime plays on Broadway and in the West End. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-9534-4. OCLC903807427. ↩
The Historical Nights' Entertainment stories are 'factions' – truth so far as anyone knows it, embellished with imagination. Some are actually apocryphal, not even history. ↩↩2↩3