Audiobook · read by volunteers
Captain Blood
Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950)
Read by Denny Sayers (d. 2015), Sandra in Wales, United Kingdom, Caitlin Kelly, Jeff Robinson, J. M. Smallheer, fieldsofgold, sayeth, Chris Langston, Matthew Hinman, Michelle Crandall · 31 chapters · 12 h 11
About the book
Peter Blood is an Irish doctor who wants nothing more than to treat his patients in peace. Then, one night, he tends a wounded rebel, is arrested for treason and condemned, and finds himself sold into slavery on a Caribbean island. Escape, a stolen ship and a new life under the black flag follow. Rafael Sabatini keeps the pace high and the dialogue sparkling, and Captain Blood is full of sea battles, rivalries and duels, with a hero who is clever, ironic and proud. Thirty-one chapters and more than twelve hours, shared among ten readers, offer a classic of historical adventure that inspired a celebrated Hollywood film. If you love swashbucklers, this is your cue to hoist the sails. Prepare for a thrilling voyage under sail.
Introduction
Rafael Sabatini, who lived from 1875 to 1950, was one of the most popular writers of historical adventure in English. Captain Blood, originally published in 1922, is one of his most famous novels. It concerns the sharp-witted Dr. Peter Blood, an Irish physician, who is convicted of treason in the aftermath of the Monmouth rebellion in 1685 and enslaved on the Caribbean island of Barbados. He escapes and becomes a pirate.
Sabatini draws on the real history of the seventeenth century, with its political quarrels in England and its colonial struggles in the Caribbean, but he is mostly interested in the pleasure of a good story. The hero is a man of learning and principle who is forced into a life of violence, and he retains a sense of honour and a sharp tongue. The writer’s fast-moving fiction is often compared with that of Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexandre Dumas.
Captain Blood was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated swashbuckling film that rocketed Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland to stardom in Hollywood. The film is a favourite, but the novel has more detail and a more complex plot, and it deserves attention in its own right.
This LibriVox recording has thirty-one chapters, beginning with The Messenger and Kirke’s Dragoons, and lasts about twelve hours. Ten volunteers share the reading, including Denny Sayers, Sandra in Wales, United Kingdom and Caitlin Kelly. It makes a splendid choice for long journeys or winter evenings, and the many readers give the novel a changing sound.
Public domain
Rafael Sabatini died in 1950: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text