Misplaced Pages

#527472

20-397: The Sea Hawk is a 1915 novel by Rafael Sabatini . The story is set over the years 1588–1593 and concerns a retired Cornish seafaring gentleman, Sir Oliver Tressilian, who is villainously betrayed by a jealous half-brother. After being forced to serve as a slave on a galley , Sir Oliver is liberated by Barbary pirates . He joins the pirates, gaining the name "Sakr-el-Bahr" (the hawk of

40-463: A duel with Sir John. The scheme backfires: Sir John is seriously wounded, further stoking Peter's hatred. Peter attempts to bait Oliver into a violent confrontation, but Oliver is mindful of Rosamund's warning never to meet her brother in an affair of honor. One evening, Lionel returns home, bloodied and exhausted. He has killed Peter in a duel, but there were no witnesses. Oliver is widely believed to be Peter's killer, and Lionel does nothing to disprove

60-466: A Spanish vessel and discovers his one-time kidnapper, Jasper Leigh, as a slave at the oars. He gives Jasper the opportunity to convert to Islam and join his corsairs. With Jasper's navigational skills, Sakr-el-Bahr sets sail for England to take revenge on Lionel. Lionel has taken possession of Penarrow. He is now betrothed to Rosamund, who believes that Oliver murdered her brother. Sakr-el-Bahr carries them off to Algiers to be sold as slaves. The Basha takes

80-471: 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. It took Sabatini roughly a quarter of a century of hard work before he attained success in 1921 with Scaramouche . The novel, an historical romance set during the French Revolution , became an international bestseller . It was followed the next year by

100-464: A fancy to Rosamund, and plans to buy her himself. The Basha does not have enough ready cash to meet the high bid, and Sakr-el-Bahr wins her instead. The Basha threatens to take her by force, but Sakr-el-Bahr marries her, foiling the Basha's efforts. He also buys Lionel and tricks him into revealing the truth about Peter's death. Rafael Sabatini Rafael Sabatini (29 April 1875 – 13 February 1950)

120-644: A fragment excerpted in Vidor's silent comedy Show People (1928). All but one of the reels of Bardelys were rediscovered in France in 2006, and a restoration (with production stills standing in for the missing reel) was completed in 2008. A silent version of The Tavern Knight (1920) was made in England. A silent version of Captain Blood (1924), directed by David Smith and starring J. Warren Kerrigan , which

140-599: A young age Sabatini was exposed to many languages living with his grandfather in Britain. He attended school in Portugal , and as a teenager in Switzerland . By the time he was 17, when he returned to Britain to live permanently, he had become proficient in five languages. He quickly added a sixth language – English – to his linguistic collection. He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, "all

160-741: Is an important industrial and artistic center in the floodplain on the left (north) bank of the Esino river, 17 kilometres (11 mi) before its mouth on the Adriatic Sea . Jesi (Iesi) was one of the last towns of the Umbri when, in the 4th century BC, the Senones Gauls invaded the area and ousted them. They turned it into a stronghold against the Piceni . In 283 BC the Senones were defeated by

180-771: The Romans. Jesi in 247 BC became a colonia civium romanorum with the name of Aesis . During the fall of the Western Roman Empire , Jesi was ravaged by the troops of Odoacer (476 AD) and again in 493 by the Ostrogoths of Theodoric the Great . After the Gothic War , Italy became part of the Byzantine Empire , and Jesi became one of the main centers of the new rulers, and a diocese seat. In 751 it

200-531: The accusations. To avoid repercussions for Peter's death, Lionel has Oliver kidnapped and sold into slavery to ensure that he never reveals the truth. En route to the New World, the slave ship is boarded by the Spanish, and her crew are added to the slaves. For six months Oliver toils at the oars of a Spanish galley. He befriends a Moorish slave, Yusuf-ben-Moktar. Oliver, Yusuf and the other slaves are freed when

220-594: The best stories are written in English". In 1905, he married Ruth Goad Dixon, the daughter of a Liverpool merchant. They had a son, Sabatini's only son, Rafael-Angelo (nicknamed Binkie). He was killed in a car crash on 1 April 1927. In 1931, Sabatini and his wife Ruth divorced. Later that year he moved from London to Clifford, Herefordshire , near Hay-on-Wye . In 1935, he married the sculptor Christine Dixon ( née Wood), his former sister-in-law. They suffered further tragedy when Christine's son, Lancelot Steele Dixon,

SECTION 10

#1732798549528

240-569: The early 1940s illness forced Sabatini to slow his prolific writing. He only published three more books before his death in 1950: King in Prussia (also known as The Birth of Mischief, 1944), Turbulent Tales (a collection of shorts, 1946), and The Gamester (1949). Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi , Italy, to an English-speaking mother, Anna Trafford, and Italian father, Vincenzo Sabatini. His parents were opera singers who then became teachers. At

260-409: The equally successful Captain Blood . All of his earlier books were then rushed into reprints, the most popular of which was The Sea Hawk (originally published in 1915). Sabatini was a prolific writer, producing a new book approximately every year. With his high output and well-crafted stories he was able to maintain his popularity with the reading public through the decades that followed. In

280-727: The galley is boarded by Muslim corsairs. They offer to fight for the Muslims. Oliver's fighting skills and the testimony of Yusuf, the nephew of the Basha of Algiers , grants Oliver special privileges in Muslim society. He becomes the corsair known as Sakr-el-Bahr , "the Hawk of the Sea". In this new role, Oliver rescues English slaves by purchasing them himself and releasing them in Italy. Oliver captures

300-470: The sea), and swears vengeance against his brother. Sir Oliver Tressilian lives at the estate of Penarrow with his brother, Lionel. Oliver is betrothed to Rosamund Godolphin, whose hot-headed brother, Peter, detests the Tressilians due to an old feud between their fathers. Peter and Rosamund's guardian, Sir John Killigrew, also has little love for the Tressilians. Peter's manipulations drive Oliver into

320-501: The world was mad", the first line of Scaramouche . Several of his novels were made into notable films in the sound era : The 1940 film The Sea Hawk , with Errol Flynn , is not an adaptation but a wholly new story which just used his novel’s title. His novel Bardelys the Magnificent was made into a famous 1926 "lost" film of the same title , directed by King Vidor , starring John Gilbert , and long viewable only in

340-635: Was an Italian -born British writer of romance and adventure novels. He is best known for his worldwide bestsellers : The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), Captain Blood (a.k.a. Captain Blood: His Odyssey ) (1922), and Bellarion the Fortunate (1926). Several of his novels have been made into films, both silent and sound. In all, Sabatini produced 34 novels, eight short story collections, six non-fiction books, numerous uncollected short stories, and several plays. After

360-519: Was killed in a flying accident on the day he received his RAF wings in 1940; he flew his aeroplane over his family's house, but the plane went out of control and crashed in flames right before the observers' eyes. Sabatini died in Switzerland 13 February 1950. He was buried in Adelboden , Switzerland. On his headstone his wife had written, "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that

380-664: Was one of the last productions of the Vitagraph Company of America , survives in the Library of Congress , and two other silent adaptations of Sabatini novels which survive in other archives are Rex Ingram 's Scaramouche (1923) starring Ramón Novarro at the George Eastman Museum , and Frank Lloyd 's The Sea Hawk starring Milton Sills at the UCLA Film and Television Archive . Jesi It

400-663: Was sacked by the Lombard troops of Aistulf , and later was a Carolingian imperial city. Since 1130, it was an independent commune , gradually expanding its control over its surrounding agrarian region. In December 1194 the future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was born here: he later made Jesi a "Royal City". In the 14th century it was captured by the Papal vicar Filippo Simonetti , then by Galeotto I Malatesta (1347–1351), by Braccio da Montone in 1408, and by Francesco I Sforza , who turned it into his family's main stronghold in

#527472