BOOKWORM

The last of the Sabatini tables:

table 3

DATE	LIFE	WORK
1931, April	Rafael is divorced by Ruth; he buys Clock Mill on the River Wye in Herefordshire & he turns 56
3 September		Duel on the Beach [to become The Black Swan]
October?		Scaramouche the Kingmaker [serialised in US, 7 pts, Apr. – Oct.]
October to December	Rafael visits the US and Canada
?		Captain Blood Returns [pub UK in 1932 as The Chronicles of Captain Blood]
1932, May	Rafael is 57	The Ghost of Tronjolly
May?		The Black Swan [serialised in UK, 9 pts, Jan. – Feb.]
3 June		Forbidden Lover [serialised in US, 3 pts, up to August]
????		??Fighting Fool [serialised in US, 7 pts, Jan. – July] [rather silly title; what could it refer to?]
1933, May	Rafael is 58	The Stalking Horse
		Hearts and Swords [to become Venetian Masque; serial in US, 11pts, 2 Sept. – 11 Nov.]
1934, April/May	Rafael is 59	Heroic Lives
June		The Price
July		The Philtre
August		Renunciation
September?		Venetian Masque [serialised in UK, Apr. – July or Aug.]
9 September		The Crooked Carcase
October		The Counter Parry
14 October		Madam Resourceful
11 November		The Vagabond Queen
December		The Lady of Cantapulo
9 December		The Merchant's Daughter
1935	Rafael marries Christine Dixon, his ex-sister-in-law
13 January		The Queen's Gambit
February		The Ransom
July	Rafael is 60	The Open Door
October?		Chivalry
?	edits & writes Introd.- A Century of Sea Stories
?	writes Introd. to Any Luck by Eugene V Connett
1936, February		Out of the Dragon's Jaw
April	Rafael is 61	The Bogus Buccaneer
May		The Lady and the Pirate
		The Pro-Consul's Fish
June		The Deliverance
September		Rogue in Red
November?		The Fortunes of Captain Blood
?	edits & writes Introduction to A Century of Historical Stories
1937, January		Jack O'Lantern
March		The Lie
September	Rafael is 62	The Lost King [serialised in UK, June - ?]
1938, March		On Cows
June	Rafael is 63	Historical Nights' Entertainment 3rd series
?	writes foreword to Honest Thieves by Patrick Pringle
1939, January		The Pistol
January?	later this year, Rafael is 64	The Sword of Islam
1940, 9 April	Christine's son Lancelot (Lanty) beloved of Rafael, dies in air crash before their eyes Rafael is 65
July?		Master-at-Arms (UK), The Marquis of Carabas (US)
December		The Gordian Knot
1941, January		The Tyrant [a fishing tale]
February		The Gentlewoman's Amanuensis
March		Extraordinary Catches
June	Rafael is 66	Grim Fishing
September		The Dupe
?		Columbus (UK)
1942 1943	in April, Rafael is 67 in April, Rafael is 68	Columbus serialised in US from February
1944, June? 1945, August	Rafael is 69 Rafael is 70	King in Prussia (UK) published as Birth of Mischief (US)
1946 1947	Rafael is 71 Rafael is 72	Turbulent Tales
1948, March	in April, Rafael is 73	The Basking Pike
1949, February?		The Gamester
April	Rafael is 74	The Salmon-fly
October		Smoked Salmon
1950, February		My First Salmon
13 February	Rafael Sabatini dies in Adelboden, Switzerland
1963	Christine Sabatini dies

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

BOOKWORM

Notes for CAPTAIN BLOOD by Rafael Sabatini

Instalment 1

quo quo scelesti ruitis
first line of Epodes #7 of Horace

Where, where O madmen are you rushing to?

Sabatini's use of quotations and words/phrases in other languages
although Sabatini had an unusual background and education, in his day, (& right up to before WW II) a good education for an upper-class youth would include Greek, Latin and French, & might even stretch to German or Italian in a more cosmopolitan family. He would naturally expect from his readers a familiarity with the classical writers. But the English vocabulary he used came from sheer joy in the language.

James II of England
was he as unlikeable as Sabatini suggests? Well, finally only God can decide that, but unless one is a dedicated Jacobite most people have little time for the Stuarts, & a poor opinion of James II.

wikipedia covers the topic fairly extensively, with links to Monmouth etc. & lots of fine pictures. Pictures are always a treat!

Sabatini was sensible enough to see that Monmouth's rebellion & the Jacobite cause were fine jumping off places for tales of danger, derring-do & damsels to be wooed. He was also too sensible to be a Jacobite. He mined this rich vein more than once:
Anthony Wilding & the Captain Blood books;
The Lion's Skin, The Gates of Doom, & The Stalking Horse, besides sundry short stories.

"Miss Blake and Mrs Musgrove" [either Sabatini got the spelling of the second name wrong or the typesetter did; it should be Musgrave]:
from King Monmouth A History of the Career of James Scott "The Protestant Duke" by Allan Fea:

"The day after his appearance in Taunton, a procession as original as it was pretty, awaited at his Grace's lodgings, with twenty-seven banners; one of which foretold the regal position which shortly was to be adopted, viz., the letters "J. R." worked upon a golden ground, fringed with lace. The bearers of these colours were their manufacturers, the young girls (aged between eight and ten) belonging to seminaries kept by a Miss Blake and Mrs Musgrave." &
"The incident was afterwards satirised in a song called 'The Glory of the West, or the Virgins of Taunton Dean, who ript open their silk petticoats to make colours for the Army of the Duke of Monmouth.'"

Perkin Warbeck (1474 – 23 November 1499) was a pretender to the English throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England.

armigerous ~ bearing heraldic arms

Sir Martin Frobisher (c. 1535 or 1539 – November 22, 1594) was an English seaman (from Wakefield, Yorkshire) who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage.
As an English privateer/pirate, he collected riches from French ships. He was later knighted for his service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588. [an odd choice for the forebear of a lady from Somerset, unless she, too, had parents from different regions of England. RH]
~ note from wikipedia

Catholics and Trinity
During its early life, Trinity was exclusively for the Protestant Ascendancy class. Following early steps in Catholic Emancipation, Roman Catholics were first admitted in 1793 (prior to the equivalent change at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford). In 1873, all religious tests were abolished, except for the Divinity School. However, it was not until 1970 that the Roman Catholic Church, through the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid, lifted its policy of disapproval or even excommunication for Roman Catholics who enrolled without special dispensation, at the same time as the Trinity authorities allowed a Roman Catholic chaplain to be based in the college.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Trinity+College,+Dublin

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter (24 March 1607 – 29 April 1676) is one of the most famous admirals in Dutch history. De Ruyter is most famous for his role in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century. He fought the English and French in these wars and scored several major victories, the best known probably being the Raid on the Medway. [we get a date for Peter Blood before the action RH]
Trivia:De Ruyter has great great grandchildren still living in London.
~ note from wikipedia

"Peace of Nimeguen"
The Treaties of Peace of Nijmegen (Négotiations de Nimegue or Négotiations de la Paix de Nimègue) were a series of treaties, signed in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, August 1678 - December 1679, ending war between various countries, including France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire, during the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1678). [we get another date for Peter Blood before the action RH]
~ note from wikipedia

"Mr. Pollexfen, the Judge-Advocate" ~ The chief prosecutor at the "Bloody Assizes" was Sir Henry Pollexfen, who was "a leading member of the committee which drafted the Bill of Rights."[The Antidiscrimination Eighth Amendment; Journal article by Laurence Claus; Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 28, 2004]

"I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." ~ "I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." actual words of Judge Jeffreys, mocking an unfortunate innocent [quoted in Samuel Rawson Gardiner, A Student’s History of England, from the Earliest Times to 1885 637 (Longmans, Green, and Co. 1891) (1891); Mackintosh, at 638; Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second 575 (1878) (1848), at 586.]

pimento
In general use the word refers to the large, red, heart-shaped chili pepper (Capsicum annuum) which grows on a plant, not a tree. But here Sabatini intends the more localised use meaning Allspice, Pimento dioica (L.), an evergreen tree belonging to the Myrtle family. The tree is native to the West Indies. The usage is probably not unusual to persons familiar with this part of the world, but someone from the Orient needs clarification of the point.

"Escurial" ~ El Escorial, whose full name is El Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial, the royal monastery of St Lorenzo of Escorial. It consists of a monastery, church, royal mausoleum, a palace intended as summer and autumn residence of the court, college, library, art-galleries, etc., and it was begun by Philip II of Spain. The French call it the Escurial, & the English follow suit. [Sabatini chooses the French/English spelling over the authentic Spanish.]

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.

BOOKWORM

READING RAFAEL SABATINI continues with table 2

table 2

DATE	LIFE	WORK
1915, April	Rafael is 40	The Act of Faith [to become Hounds of God]
2 October		Duroc
		The Roundhead's Bargain
November		The Quittance
December		The Poachers
?		?The Fugitive?
?		?Fructidor? [possibly became The Reaping]
?		The Sea-Hawk
?		The Banner of the Bull
	Rafael may have translated The History of the Harlequinade by Maurice Sand pub. by Secker; JFK thought so.
1916, February		The Mask [to become The Stalking Horse]
March		The Scourge [to become Fortune's Fool]
May	Rafael is 41	The Camisade
1917, June	Rafael is 42	The Night of Escape
December		Historical Nights' Entertainment, 1st series
?		The Snare
?	edits The Book of Sea Trout by Hamish Stuart
1918, January		The Arcanum
		Intelligence
March		The Augmentation of Mercury
April	Rafael is 43	The Priest of Mars
May		The Oracle
June		Under the Leads
July		The Rooks and the Hawk
August		The Polish Duel
1919, June	Rafael is 44	The Night of Doom [to become The Minion]
5 December		The Sentimentalist
		The Scapulary
?		Historical Nights' Entertainment, 2nd series
1920, 15 November	Rafael is 45	While the Clock Ticked
December		The Usurer's Daughter
		The Marriage of Beaumartin
1921, 15 July	Rafael is 46	Casanova in Madrid
1 August		Blood Money
10 October		Hostage
20 October		Captain Blood's Dilemma
?		The Lord of Time
?		Scaramouche
	collaborates with J E Harold Terry on play, produced in New York	The Rattlesnake
	writes the screenplay	Bluff
1922	Rafael is 47	Captain Blood
	writes the screenplay	The Scourge
	writes the screenplay	The Recoil
1923, July	Rafael is 48	The Girl He Got at the Pawnshop
August?		Fortune's Fool [serialised in US, Dec.'22 & Feb.'23
	The Rattlesnake is produced in London, & he writes, for production in New York, the play	Scaramouche
1924, October	Rafael is 49	The Luck of Capoulade
November?		The Carolinian [serialised in US, June - December]
	collaborates with Leon M Lion [yes, that's his name!] on play produced in London	In the Snare
	revises	Torquemada
	and	Cesare Borgia
	?writes article?	The Revenge of the Queen
1925, February		In the Shadow of the Guillotine [ pt 1 of The Reaping]
9 May	Rafael is 50; he writes an article	Are You An Ancestor?
	and a play, produced in Birmingham & London	The Tyrant
	revises	The Strolling Saint
	collaborates with J E Harold Terry on a play, produced in Detroit & New York	The Carolinian
1926, August?	Rafael is 51	Bellarion [serialised in US, 7 pts, Feb. – Aug.]
1927, January		The Nuptials of Corbigny [to become Nuptials of Corbal]
1 April	Rafael-Angelo dies in a car crash; Rafael senior suffers "nervous exhaustion". He turns 52 & misses the opening of Glasgow production of Scaramouche, (also produced in London)
October		The Nuptials of Corbal
November		The Catchpoll
?	writes an Introduction for The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
1928, October?	Rafael is 53	The Hounds of God
1929, April?	Rafael is 54	The Romantic Prince [ serialised in US, Apr. – June]
June		Dagger and Sword
July		Rendezvous
?		The Reaping
1930, February		Ransom
March		The Blank Shot
April	Rafael is 55	The Treasure Ship
May		The King's Messenger
		[May to August, 4 pt serial, The Stalking Horse]
June		The Love Story of Jeremy Pitt
July		The War Indemnity
August		Gallows Key
September		The Expiation of Mme. de Coulevain
October		The Gratitude of M. de Coulevain
		The Minion [in US The King's Minion, serialised in 7 pts, Apr. – Oct.]
November	The Tyrant is produced in New York

Ruth Heredia is the originator and holds the copyright to all material on this blog unless credited to some source. Please do not use it or pass it off as your own work. That is theft. If you wish to link it, quote it, or reprint in whole or in part, please be courteous enough to seek my permission.