The Wicked Wench engaging the Spanish fort at Isla Tesoro. Disney publicity still.
It’s an epic image, one that anyone who’s ever cruised through the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at one of the Disney theme parks is familiar with: a pirate ship cannonading — “firing its guns at” in sea parlance — a Spanish fort.
But the image-in-motion long predates the Disney attraction. In fact, as I’ll demonstrate shortly, the entire scene was lifted directly from Rafael Sabatini’s famous novel, Captain Blood: His Odyssey and especially from the 1935 film version starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone. And the Wicked Wench pirate ship of the attraction was more than simply inspired by the Cinco Llagas / Arabella, as the ship in the novel and film was named: it was copied from it!
Originally the attraction depicted buccaneers in the second half of the 17th century…
The duel on the beach in Captain Blood, clearly posed in reference and homage to the similar paintings of Howard Pyle and some of his former students. Original Warner Bros. publicity still, 1935. Author’s collection.
Classic film buffs, fencers, armchair adventurers, real swashbucklers, and romantics of many other stripes may debate over which film duel is the “best.” But no matter the standard, the duel between Errol Flynn as the hero Peter Blood and Basil Rathbone as the villain Levasseur in Captain Blood (1935) always makes the top few, often at number one. For me, there is no contest. There are a few far more historically accurate film duels (in fact, there are only a few historically accurate film duels at all), but none in my opinion exceed this one in sheer excitement, drama, swashbuckling swordplay, and watching pleasure.
The 1935 release, a remake of the silent 1924 film…
Errol Flynn in a publicity still for Captain Blood, 1935, Warner Bros. Author’s collection.
With the advent of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini, not to mention our forthcoming thoroughly annotated anniversary edition, a look into the largely unknown, and until now unpublished, history behind the novel is timely: of real buccaneers and mystery pirates, of an incognito pirate captain whose identity we hope to reveal for the first time, and how without them there would be no famous novel Captain Blood nor any films of Errol Flynn, at least as we know them!
One of Sabatini’s major influences was the published journal of Monmouth rebel-convict Henry Pitman who, sentenced to indentured servitude on Barbados, escaped by sea, found himself marooned on Saltudos Island, and was eventually rescued by a crew of unnamed buccaneers. His story alone is worth the…
The Duel between Captain Blood (Errol Flynn) and Captain Levasseur (Basil Rathbone) in Captain Blood, 1935. Original publicity still. Author’s collection.
Each media–the written word, the illustration, the motion picture–has a unique ability to convey action. A novel can not only describe but explain swordplay in action; an illustration can bring a moment in time to life and make an entire action timeless; a motion picture can show action as it unfolds and as we might see it were it real.
Of all three, by turning the written description or static illustration into moving action, film may have left us with our most indelible memories and tropes of the duel on the beach. Or so I argue tenuously, for several written descriptions and illustrations come to mind that likewise bring forth indelible memories.
With fiction we must imagine the duel, even when when well-described (but almost always imperfectly nonetheless)…
I’m not going to pretend to write a pretentious analysis of pop cover art and imagined social implications, nor any other nonsense. I’m neither an art historian nor inclined to see things that aren’t really there. Suffice it to say that these covers are intended to be eye-catching, often titillating, and always bordering on near-lurid, entirely to lure potential readers to buy the book. The accompanying cover copy, the blurb especially, is almost as over the top as the art. This isn’t a criticism, for similar art and copy is often found on the covers of far more notable works.
As for the text inside? Suffice it to say that it’s not comparable, in spite of the cover copy claims, to that of Rafael Sabatini or any other notable writer of romantic adventure. Pirate pulps are almost always extremely light on literary substance and historical accuracy, and quite…
“Zeeslag,” anonymous, after Reinier Nooms, 1650-1738. Rijksmuseum.
It is with great pleasure that Treasure Light Press announces the acquisition of the James Speke Collection of historical documents associated with Caribbean piracy during the 1680s. The collection includes the original unpublished set of twenty-odd volumes of journals used by Rafael Sabatini as the factual basis for many of the adventures of his sanguinary hero, Captain Peter Blood.
Author Benerson Little, co-publisher and annotator at Treasure Light Press, has been searching for the papers, long thought lost, for more than a quarter century. Their rediscovery was the result of a combination of diligent research, serendipity, and thankfully thwarted skullduggery, including attempted forgeries and book-breaking, all of which was an adventure in itself.
The collection, long held by James Speke of Comerton, UK, disappeared after the amateur scholar’s death and passed, often unknowingly, through several hands, eventually ending up in an attic in a house in uptown New Orleans just off St. Charles Avenue, not far from the Columns Hotel.
For the moment we are limiting access to the papers and journals to ourselves, aided by an experienced conservator (thanks, Shell!) of antiquarian books and papers. At some point, however, given their obvious historical value, we may lend or donate the papers to a research institution for access by scholars, Sabatini fans, and the public at large, with emphasis on serious amateur historians who lack university credentials or access. Having been snubbed at times by some academic institutions ourselves, we’re sympathetic to the plight of amateur scholars producing quality research.
More importantly, per James Comerton’s wishes more than a century ago, we intend to publish the collection of journals, the most important of them in hardcover, the remainder digitally.
We’ll keep you advised on our progress with the collection. We look forward not only to further discoveries in the history of buccaneering, but also to learning how they shaped Sabatini’s famous novel, Captain Blood: His Odyssey.
Copyright Treasure Light Press LLC 2021. First posted April 1, 2021.
A brief chronology of mass market paperback covers from various publishers of Captain Blood: His Odyssey. The cover art ranges from mere pro forma to quite elaborate. Book cover art, including dust jackets, has one principal purpose beyond identifying the book and author: to entice readers into buying the book. Historical accuracy is secondary at best, and often entirely ignored–and sometimes even the actual text of the book itself is ignored, with tropes substituted instead. In any case, enjoy. 🙂
Pocket Books edition, UK, 1940, with color restored from a faded copy. The artwork is intended to represent the duel on the beach between Peter Blood and Levasseur.
Undated US Armed Forces edition printed during WWII by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin. The cover of the book depicted was never actually published except on the cover of this edition. A pirate with cutlass, a flag of skull and bones–this is all that’s necessary to lure the reader in.
Pocket Books edition, UK, fifth printing, 1943. The scene is not tied any specific one from the book, and was likely inspired by the dustjacket of Captain Blood Returns, see below. The sword hilt is entirely fanciful. Cover art by Dean Cornwell for the dustjacket of Captain Blood Returns (1930). The same illustration in blue and white was used in “The Expiation of Madame Coulevain,” a 1930 magazine short story later published as part of Captain Blood Returns.US Pyramid edition, 1961. Again, the cover is tied to no specific scene in the book, and includes anachronistic Hollywood Spaniards in morions, and the obligatory damsel in distress at the hero’s feet. The cover is intended to entice, not to accurately illustrate the novel.UK Arrow edition, undated. 1950s or early 1960s? Sharp-eyed readers may note the black swan figurehead: the image was taken from a Hutchinson hardcover edition of Rafael Sabatini’s The Black Swan.UK Pan edition, second printing 1963, original 1961. Again, the cover does not depict a scene from the book, but instead evokes its atmosphere. As in many Captain Blood illustrations, the protagonist has a mustache, unlike in the book (although he did have one in the original magazine series). The cutlass is both anachronistic and incorrect for Peter Blood. Unusually, the Spanish ship on the left is flying the correct flag.US Pyramid edition, third printing, 1967. This is the first edition I ever read, and its cover remains one of my favorites.Publicity still for The Sea Hawk, 1940. The cover above was inspired by this photograph, and probably by publicity stills from Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk showing Errol Flynn on the gunwale during a boarding action.UK Pan edition, 5th printing, 1974. Although the woman resembles Arabella Bishop, she is in fact, given the scene, the daughter of Governor d’Ogeron. And again, the mustache and, incorrectly (although common in Hollywood and fiction illustrations), riding boots.Without doubt the most elaborate and artistic of mass market Captain Blood covers. US Bantam edition, 1976, one of my favorites. See the image below.Inside cover art, highly unusual in mass market paperbacks but occasionally found in trade paperbacks. Much-abridged and simplified edition by E. F. Dodd for middle school / junior high school readers, published by Macmillan originally in 1964. This is the 1991 printing. These “Stories to Remember” editions were intended to make novels accessible to ESL readers and as to provide an easy introduction to novels for native speakers. I’m of two minds regarding such abridgements: on the one hand, they may encourage readers to try the full-length novels they might not otherwise attempt. On the other hand, I first read Captain Blood at 12 or 13, and I’ve a natural aversion to abridgement in any form, considering it destructive to the author’s work.
Most editions after the 1970s are larger trade paperbacks lacking original cover art. Publishers try to spend as little money as possible, often leaving cover art either simple or taken directly from artworks in the public domain. Howard Pyle’s pirate art is a common source for Captain Blood editions, and for the cover art of many books on the subject of piracy as well (including one of my own, The Buccaneer’s Realm).
Copyright Treasure Light Press LLC, 2021. First posted March 4, 2021. Last Updated October 9, 2022. Text by Benerson Little.
Dust jacket from the first American edition. I much prefer the swordplay illustration below.
Set amidst the 1665 London plague, Fortune’s Fool by Rafael Sabatini spins the tale of an English officer, Colonel Randal Holles, too often abandoned by the goddess Fortune.
It’s not Sabatini’s best work, but it’s an enjoyable read and, in particular, it clearly show’s his worldview: one romantically cynical, in that he understood well the foolishness and fecklessness, even the depravity and cowardice, of much of humankind, while simultaneously asserting that good can, and often does, triumph in the end.
Sabatini understood that to succeed honorably, even nobly in such a world, one needed not only courage, but wit as well. And it never hurt to have a sharp sword too.
Early 17th century image of the plague in London.
In particular, the novel, whose details are almost certainly drawn from Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of…
First edition cover, Houghton Mifflin, 1922. Illustration, also used in the frontispiece, by famous illustrator and Howard Pyle student N. C. Wyeth, father of famous painter Andrew Wyeth. Price for the book? $2.00! Highly collectible.
In a future post I’ll cover trade and mass market paperback covers.
The dust jacket of the first hardcover edition above is iconic, if not entirely historically accurate, but then, fiction book cover illustrations almost never are. Artist and illustrator N. C. Wyeth–a student of Howard Pyle–does, however, well-conveys the color and swashbuckling adventure of the novel.
Notably, as in many of the dust jackets below, Captain Peter Blood is sporting a…
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