Captain Blood Vol. 1: Brethren of the Main & His Oddisey

by Rafael Sabatini

Captain Blood, admiral of a fleet of pirate ships, appeared originally in Premier Magazine, as nine short stories, starting in December 1920, under the title "Brethren of the Main. In 1922 Sabatini put together some of those and many more stories into what would become a very popular novel "Captain Blood: His Odissey."
This volume has both: Brethren of the Main and Captain Blood, his Odyssey.
In a second volume, we have included The Chronicles of Captain Blood and The Fortunes of Captain Blood.

The author was a proponent of basing historical fiction as closely as possible on history, therefore, much of the historical background of the novel is based on fact. The Monmouth rebels were sold into slavery as described in the book; and the shifting political alliances of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 are used as a plot device to allow Blood's return to respectability.
The first part of the story of Blood is based on Henry Pitman, a surgeon who tended the wounded Monmouth rebels and was sentenced to death by Jeffries, but his sentence was commuted to transportation to Barbados where he escaped and was captured by pirates.

501 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 19, 2014

About the author

Rafael Sabatini (1875 - 1950) was an Italian/British writer of novels of romance and adventure. At a young age, Rafael was exposed to many languages. By the time he was seventeen, he was the master of five languages. He quickly added a sixth language - English - to his linguistic collection. 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. Sabatini was a prolific writer; he produced a new book approximately every year. He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, "all the best stories are written in English. " In all, he produced thirty one novels, eight short story collections, six nonfiction books, numerous uncollected short stories, and a play. He is best known for his world-wide bestsellers: The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), Captain Blood (1922) and Bellarion the Fortunate (1926). Other famous works by Sabatini are The Lion's Skin (1911), The Strolling Saint (1913) and The Snare (1917).

Reviews

[Nick Katenkamp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite average, but not bad. Captain Blood finds himself betrayed and must use his wits to get himself out of the debacle.