Scaramouche

Description

A classic tale of high adventure, the story of a man 'born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad'. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BERNARD CORNWELL When Andre-Louis witnesses the murder of his best friend by an arrogant and privileged aristocrat he swears to avenge his death. Forced to flee his hometown after stirring up revolutionary fervour in the citizens, he falls in with a travelling theatre company and disguises himself as the character of the wily rogue Scaramouche. His ensuing adventures involve hair-raising duels, romance, treachery and shocking family secrets all handled with brilliance and wit by this extraordinary hero.

Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi, Italy in 1875 to an English mother and Italian father, both renowned opera singers. At a young age, Rafael travelled frequently, and could speak six languages fluently by the age of seventeen. After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini turned to writing. He worked prolifically, writing short stories in the 1890s, with his first novel published in 1902. Scaramouche was published in 1921 to widespread acclaim, and was soon followed by the equally succesful Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk. He died on February 13, 1950 in Switzerland.

Mr Sabatini's novel of the French Revolution has all the colour and lively incident which we expect in his work * Observer * 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 * Scaramouche is a wonderfully adventurous story... a splendid novel, whose author fully deserved the fame and fortune it brought him... He gave us great stories and this one, for me, is his best. -- Bernard Cornwell [Sabatini] is to be learned from by any who seek instruction in the craft of writing or the matter of history. This century has seen no greater expert in the two combined -- George Macdonald Fraser Mr. Rafael Sabatini is one of the most picturesque of romantic writers and has also a sound equipment as a historian * Daily Express *