#rafael sabatini

[popculturelib]

Do you prefer your books horizontal or vertical?

Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were softcover paperbacks distributed to American soldiers during World War II. After campaigns to collect donated books for soldiers fell through -- in part due to books' large size and hardback covers -- the Council on Books in Wartime (CBW) developed a plan to print pocket-sized softcovers of hundreds of books and deliver them to overseas soldiers.

Many ASEs were printed on presses normally used for magazines, which were too large for soldiers' pockets, so publishers printed two copies per magazine page and cut them in half, resulting in the horizontal format. Seen here are two paperback copies of Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood (printed in 1945 and 1940, respectively) for comparison.

The books chosen for ASEs were a wide range of subjects and genres, including fiction and non-fiction, and were hugely popular among soldiers -- many authors received large quantities of fan mail from soldiers who credit them with keeping up morale during the war. The success of ASEs encouraged publishers to print more softcover books after the end of the war, leading to the mass-market paperback industry still seen today.

For more information about Armed Services Editions, or these specific editions of Captain Blood, check out the books below:

Books In Action: The Armed Services Editions (1984) ed. by John Y. Cole

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II (2014) by Molly Guptill Manning

Captain Blood: His Odyssey (1940), published by Pocket Books

Captain Blood (1945), published by Editions for the Armed Services

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

#bgsu #interesting find of the week #armed services #armed services editions #captain blood #rafael sabatini

[theragamuffininitiative]

RAGS YOUVE READ SCARAMOUCHE I AM SO HAPPY how many people have even heard of Sabatini in this day and age??

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, I LOVE SABATINI SO MUCH 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Please ignore my dusty shelf and the other books, I needed to express that I do in fact love Rafael Sabatini and the fact that so few people now read his books is A Crime of the first degree.

#i haven't read all of that old set and i think i lent my copy of the snare out to someone #anyways yes hobbit friend i love sabatini #captain blood was my intro (as it should be) #now i look for his books in every used bookstore i visit #thanks for the ask! #hobbit friend #rafael sabatini #classic literature #classic lit

[aylinnworld]

Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini

I have been reading and listening to this book/audiobook recently. And I must say I really like how good an adventure story it is.

Mostly due to how the main character manages to deal with problems, with his intelligence and resourcefulness, bonus sarcastic and witty remarks. He learns new skills which help him and the main character comes across a badass because of it but it is not overdone.

He has plans and dreams, but not everything goes as he would like or planned.

Bad luck befalls him, but he is able to turn bad luck into an opportunity. It is even stated plainly in the story that this is the way to go for a story rather than getting depressed for a long time about the situation. And it is sure a very good idea for an adventure story that needs action and not too much moping about unpleasant events.

The main character is not perpetually in the right. The author shows how the main character makes assumptions which are wrong.

It would be nice if some authors remembered about this need of balancing the badassery of their character, so they do not come across as overpowered/forever right Gary Stu or Mary Sue. cough Akatsuki no Yona cough.

#scaramouche #Rafael Sabatini

[oldshrewsburyian]

I am in book-seeking despair. This may not be your area of expertise, but do you have any recommendations for a historical (or pseudo historical) novel with court intrigue and, possibly, a smidgen of swashbuckling, great escapes, high stakes, etc.? Sort of the three musketeers but if the court intrigue were at the center of the plot rather than the musketeers' (admittedly great) adventures? I need some backstabbing & equivocating courtiers on the page right now. Any recs appreciated!

Oh no, despair! As it happens, I do indeed have recs. And I suppressed the impish impulse to suggest A Game of Kings (friends don't let friends reread Lymond without emotional support.)

Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint, is historically-inspired fantasy which, if I'm remembering correctly, gets very close to what you're looking for. For my own tastes, it had not enough swashbuckling, too much drawing room drama, but the protagonist is great. And there is so much equivocation! Equivocation is, in fact, a survival skill.

Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel is a book with swords and court intrigue that I loved so much when I was 12 that I have not dared to revisit it since. I do remember that it involved both swords and the language of flowers.

Have you read Sabatini's Bellarion the Fortunate? Maybe not quite enough court intrigue for you, but there are a lot of intrigues. It's just that they sometimes happen in back rooms, and over chess games, and in military tents, and in half-painted cupolas, and around long tables with titled noblemen. Also, the romance between a steely, scheming princess and a nameless ex-scholar who decides 5 minutes after meeting her that he's going to save her life or die trying makes me want to scream. It's amazing this book didn't cause a conscious bi awakening when I was 15, but anyway.

I presume that, from my extended flailing over Prince of Foxes, you have a pretty good idea of whether or not that would be enough court intrigue for you or not.

I don't know if you've read Laurent Binet's Civilizations yet but I am about 2/3 of the way through and loving it, and I think it might fit the bill! There is a lot of discussion of 16th-century European politics, and the more you already know about e.g. Erasmus and More, and the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Schmalkaldic League, and the Edict of Nantes, the funnier and more interesting it is.

There's also a historical (fantasy, I think?) epistolary novel set in Napoleonic Europe and co-authored. It might be called something like... Blood and Ink? Steel and Ink? Noun and Noun. If anyone reading this post can remember what this is and why I think this might be a good recommendation for this, please chime in.

#historical fiction #historical fantasy #ellen kushner #laurent binet #rafael sabatini #bellarion the fortunate #civilizations #swordspoint #prince of foxes #samuel shellabarger #sherwood smith #crown duel #book recommendations #asks and answers #booklr

[books-and-sadness]

got a new book today captain blood by rafael sabatini

the weird horizontal format is because the armed services editions were printed for cheap on magazine presses two at a time then cut across the middle to separate the books. tons of them were given free to usa service men in the second world war as a moral boosting kind of thing.

im going to have to be a little bit careful reading it not to tear the pages near the staple but its in pretty good condition all things considered.

seems a pretty cool book i haven't looked too much into the story but looks like a classic tale of adventure. ill probably read it as soon as I'm done with my current one.

#books #captain blood #rafael sabatini #pirates #buccaneers #old books #reading

[ent-maiden]

Arabella Bishop from Captain Blood

I don't really know why a lot of people apparently don't like her. She is one of my favorite female characters and I really relate to her. I feel like in her position I would do a lot of the same things. I think we have very similar personalities. Yes, she was mean, but she made a lot of misjudgements. And she was misjudged. Like Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice, lol.

ANYWAY HERE IS THE COUPLE WITH SERIOUS COMMUNICATION ISSUES

now kiss

#i gave her a little cross necklace thingy because I saw it on some fan art and thought it was a nice touch #purple is my favorite color so I had to draw the lavender dress #unfortunately there just isn't as much beautiful contrast in this picture compared to Blood but at least it's not the white dress #sorry that this is also #not remotely tolkien related #i vow to do better in the future #but I firmly believe the captain blood fandom needs more content #so my two tolkien followers have to suffer with me #my art #arabella bishop #captain blood #rafael sabatini #captain peter blood #ent tag

[multifru196]

Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini

#captain blood #aesthetic #peter blood #pirates #captain blood: his odyssey #rafael sabatini

[jaemstudies]

doing research for my capstone and tell me why rafael sabatini looks like he saw some ghosts and ghouls while getting his picture done

like.  man looks Haunted

#jaem.text #rafael sabatini #i will say tho that he's a handsome lad despite the terror in his face #he also got married to one women then they got divorced and then he married his former sister in law which #oh to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation

[readskiesatdawn]

Okay but despite the problems with this book as a result of being 100 years old and attitudes changing and making some parts not very okay anymore (which to many I imagine would be a major understatement since I don’t have any race-based trauma)

But man the escaped slaves making their owner walk the plank and swim half a mile back to shore was fucking satisfying to read.

Killed off another pirate character too soon though. The Spaniard pirate was scum but the likable fun to read kind of scum.

#captain blood #rafael sabatini #spoilers #for a 100 year old book but still #bookblr

[rantsintechnicolor]

I love books: Rafael Sabatini and Captain Blood

I'm not sure how I came to Captain Blood. It might have been a used bookstore. I might have just wanted to read another pirate story after seeing the Pirates of the Caribbean movie in theaters.

However I came to it, it became a favorite book. I believe my friend Margaret may have given me Scaramouche and then that became my favorite. So, I looked for his other books. To my delight there was Captain Blood Returns and The Fortunes of Captain Blood! (Yes, indeed. I went through a phase where I read every non-fiction book in the library about pirates, skipping everything at a childrens' reading level-- and then a fair amount of non-fiction books about shipwrecks...). Which were almost impossible to find at a level affordable by anyone other than a book collector. Until I found a pile of paperbacks for one cent each on eBay from a single seller and bought them all, eight dollars shipping.

Turns out they were worth a lot more than that at the time, and the seller wanted to eek a little more money out of me. I felt bad, but ultimately it's not my fault the seller didn't know what they had. I rounded the price up to like twenty dollars maybe, because I was still a college student with very little squish in my budget.

The package arrived and I tore through all that purple prose. I didn't love them all. Scaramouche remains the first favorite and Captain Blood the second, which I read again every couple of years. But I do keep all the books because it's my one of my proudest eBay moments.

#ebay #books #reading #purple prose #rafael sabatini #captain blood #scaramouche #i love books

[mycinematheque]

#henry king #adventure #sea adventure #1942 #1940s #pirates #17th century #swashbuckler #20th century fox #robert bassler #rafael sabatini #usa

[thegothiclibrary]

The Hypnotic Tales of Rafael Sabatini Review

I have a deep appreciation for literary scholars who aim to draw once-popular but now obscure authors out of the shadows and back into the light for a new generation of readers to discover! Donald K. Hartman does just this with The Hypnotic Tales of Rafael Sabatini, which came out last year. This is the third installment in Hartman’s series of books that highlight the role of hypnotism in late…

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#book review #crime fiction #edwardian #hypnotism #mesmerism #Rafael Sabatini #Short stories #Victorian

[travsd]

Three Great Books for Show Biz Lovers

Quite coincidentally, three slim and tasteful tomes have made their way to my mailbox (the real one, not the virtual) within the space of a week, so I thought it made sense to bundle them together into a single post. The one thing they have in common is that they should all be of interest to classic show biz lovers! Rafael Sabatini is best known today for the many movies that have been adapted…

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#books #Cinquevalli #Cleverer Than God #Detroit Experience #hypnotic tales #Rafael Sabatini #show business #Soupy Sales #vaudeville

[aylinnworld]

Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini

I have finished this one and it was a nice adventure story. The main character is intelligent and entertaining with his attitude towards life and creativity to solve problems. Not everything goes as he wanted to, but ultimately everything turns out well for him as can be expected.

The climax of the story is good because it makes sense and is emotional. The buildup is there, and it is easy to figure out what will be the big reveal in the climax, even if the main character has no clue.

But for me it is fine that he didn't, since the easiest way to guess the reveal comes from meta level, so for reader only two characters make sense while for the character it could have been any male and female who have appropriate age.

More enjoyable than stories that try-hard at surprising the viewer with plot twists out of nowhere. The only thing Sabatini could have done was to introduce more characters into the story that would fit certain criteria who would serve as a red herring.

#scaramouche #Rafael Sabatini

[pageadaytale]

12 Days of Bookmas Day 3!

Day 3 – Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

Today we look at another classic, one I hadn’t heard of but which intrigued me. Scaramouche tells the story of lawyer Andre-Louis Moreau, a layabout who refuses to take sides in the great debates of the day – class struggle, inequality, revolution. When his friend is killed by a calculating and vicious Marquis, he uses his sharp tongue and quick wit to inspire the public to act against the nobility and sets the stage for the French Revolution. Now a wanted man, he joins a troupe of travelling actors, before going to Paris and learning the art of the sword. However politics calls to him once more, and in it he sees a route to revenge against the dreaded Marquis!

It’s a tale of political intrigue, adventure, and romance, and it plays out like the commedia dell’arte plays Moreau ends up writing. It’s a highbrow soap opera, with family drama in amongst tracts about politics, business, love, and revolution, and it’s one of my favourite books in this dozen.

#bookmas #book review #scaramouche #rafael sabatini

[villings]

Debes cambiar al hombre, no a los sistemas.

Rafael Sabatini

#Rafael Sabatini #cambio #hombre #sistema