Fortunes of Captain Blood [Hardcover]

Rafael Sabatini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1979

Captain Blood, the remarkable physician turned pirate returns for more thrilling adventures at sea. Time and again, he falls headlong into deep peril, each time emerging victorious. Yet when everything is stacked against him, can he keep his honour until the bitter end?

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rafael Sabatini was born to an English mother and Italian father, both well-known opera singers. At seventeen Sabatini moved to England, where, after a brief stint in the business world, he started to write. His major breakthrough came with Scaramouche, which became an international bestseller and was followed by the equally successful Captain Blood. All his earlier books were then rushed into reprint. Many of his novels were subsequently adapted into classic films which appealed to both a male and female market with their drama, romance and action, set against a variety of historical settings. 'One wonders if there is another storyteller so adroit at filling his pages with intrigue and counter-intrigue, with danger threaded with romance, with a background of lavish colour, of silks and velvets, of swords and jewels' - Daily Telegraph --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Amereon Ltd (May 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891907432
• ISBN-13: 978-0891907435
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,608,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And Still More Peter Blood!, October 8, 2002

By 

S. Ruttle (South Riding, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fortunes of Captain Blood (Hardcover)

This is another collection of Sabatini's short stories featuring Peter Blood presented in serial order so the book can be read cover to cover or one story at a time. The plots center around Captain Blood's clever outwitting of his many opponents and incidents brought about by his fame in the Caribbean, including an imposter besmirching his reputation and a clever adversary who sees through one of the Captain's many alternate personas. Highly readable and very enjoyable.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Serial Blood, August 20, 2006

By 

Joseph Rolfes (Cockeysville, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fortunes of Captain Blood (Paperback)

Raphael Sabatini apparently knew a good thing when he wrote it. The original Captain Blood was a runaway best seller. So Sabatini began cranking out further adventures of Captain Blood that were essentially collections of unrelated stories. Each chapter of "Fortunes" relates a complete stand-alone vignette, not related to the other chapters of the book.

You won't find a continuous narrative, and not much in the way of Blood's pining for the unreachable Arabella Bishop. But if you are interested in a rock-em, sock-em collection of great, salty short stories starring Sabatini's sympathetic hero Peter Blood, then "Fortunes" is for you.

Be sure that you first read the original "Captain Blood, His Odyssey", also sometimes sold simply as "Captain Blood". Then, once you are hooked on the main story, get a copy of "Fortunes" and enjoy even more piratical high-seas hijinks from everyone's favorite soldier of fortune.

As a delightful little "bonus", see if you are a careful enough reader to pick out the error in Sabatini's time-line. You'll have to remember the original Captain Blood story, and then in "Fortunes", read the story of The Eloping Hidalga. Something between the two doesn't add up. See if you can spot the mistake.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buckle Your Swash, September 12, 2009

By 

Robert L. Piepenbrink - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fortunes Of Captain Blood (Paperback)

This is the good stuff! If you've ever sailed with Conan of Cimmmeria, been in a tavern brawl with the Musketeers or swung over to the deck of a hostile ship with Errol Flynn, Rafael Sabatini is the mother lode. Here are pirates of the brave, capable and eloquent variety, and women worth risking life and limb over.

If you're new to Captain Peter Blood, here's a once-over: the core and original book is "Captain Blood His Odyssey" and read that first if you can. Sabatini subsequently wrote "The Chronicles of Captain Blood" which is also sometimes titled "Captain Blood Returns" and this one, "The Fortunes of Captain Blood" but both subsequent volumes take place between the chapters of the original novel, deepening it, but not changing Peter Blood's happy ending.

"Fortunes" is effectively a short story collection set in the Caribbean c. 1687--the great era of doubloons and buccaneering. Sabatini knows the period, understands naval warfare at this level to his fingertips and is the best dialogue writer ever to also describe swordfights--and no, I do not exclude Dumas. Buy this book. Buy all the Captain Blood books, and while you're at it, order "The Black Swan."