The Fortunes of Casanova and Other Stories

By Rafael Sabatini

Book Overview

Rafael Sabatini was one of the greatest writers of historical adventure fiction who ever lived. The master of the swashbuckling tale, he penned such runaway bestsellers as Scaramouche and Captain Blood. Indeed, Scaramouche was made into one of the most successful adventure films of that era, surpassed only by another Sabatini novel, The Sea Hawk, which sold over a million copies and led to a celebrated film starring Errol Flynn.
Sabatini was also a prolific author of short stories, and this volume contains 20 of his best. Full of pace, incident, and plot, these tales range in time from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and they conjure up a wonderful cast of rogues, vagabonds, shyster lawyers, cutpurses, quacks, and conmen. The heart of the book is a series of stories featuring Casanova, the libertine, swordsman, and wit. Sabatini takes nine colorful exploits from Casanova's notorious Memoirs and retells them with his characteristic gusto. And in addition to the stories, Jack Adrian provides an informative introduction that outlines Sabatini's life and offers an enlightening discussion of the genre of historical fiction.
"No writer, not Scott nor Dumas nor Stevenson, has brought the past to life more vividly," observes George MacDonald Fraser in the foreword. Whether set in Italy during the Renaissance or France during the Terror, these tales do indeed bring the past to glorious life, paying meticulous attention to historical detail even as they abound in surprising turns, witty dialogue, and breathtaking adventure.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019212319X
• ISBN13: 9780192123190
• Release Date: March 1994
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Classic Sabatini

From a few motifs (the housebreaker overhearing something he shouldn't, the trickster tricked, etc), Sabatini works his usual magic and creates a collection of stories that keeps you happily reading, and sad (but not disappointed!) when you turn the last page--which in my mind are the best criteria for fiction. The first half presents a 'rogue's gallery' of various one or two-shot characters in historical dress with all the snazzy repartee and swashbuckling you could imagine. You have everything from a highwayman to a French revolutionary to a Muslim pirate. The second half is the 'fortunes of Casanova' proper--a connected sequence of tales fictionalizing (and Sabatini-izing) Casanova. Strangely absent from his Casanova is...well...the attractions of women. Sabatini, save for the last tale, which is a love affair gone horribly awry, focusses on more 'adventures'--escaping from a notorious and inescapable prison, exposing a false prince, and the like. Absolutely wonderful stuff, and a must-have if you're a Sabatini fan. If you're not, the only reason I can think is that you've never read him. If you like the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise but wished they bathed a bit more, you will LOVE this man!

Great Omnibus

An outstanding omnibus which collects eleven of Sabatini's "lost" short stories and nine stories which are based on events from the historical Casanova's memoirs. Sabatini's short stories are masterful in their pace and ability to immediately immerse the reader in an adventure (invariably featuring a rascally hero) which ends in total satisfaction for the reader, if not the hero. The stories are all set from the 16th-18th centuries in various European locales and are shining examples of the craft of historical adventure writing.