The SeaHawk, with eBook, Rafael Sabatini
The SeaHawk, with eBook, Rafael Sabatini
8 Rating(s)
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The Sea-Hawk, with eBook

Author: Rafael Sabatini

Narrator: John Bolen

Unabridged: 11 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/08/2009

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

Oliver Tressilian, a Cornish gentleman who helped defeat the Spanish Armada, is betrayed by his jealous half-brother. When the ship he is on is captured by the Spanish, he is made a galley slave. Freed from slavery by Barbary pirates, he joins up with them and becomes a follower of Islam and the scourge of European ships. Taking the name "Sakr-el-Bahr," or "The Hawk of the Sea," he swears vengeance against his brother. It is this desire for revenge that brings him back to the British shores where he is a wanted man.

About Rafael Sabatini

Known as "The Last of the Great Swashbucklers," Rafael Sabatini was an Italian-born author whose two lifelong passions-the demand for justice and the desire for tolerance-were common themes in his novels. His best-known works include The Sea-Hawk, Scaramouche, and Captain Blood, all of which were made into films.

Sabatini was born in 1875 in the small town of Jesi, Italy. His English mother and Italian father were both well-known opera singers. They traveled extensively, so they sent Rafael to live in England until he was seven. Rafael then lived in Portugal and Milan with his parents until he was sent to school in Switzerland. He was a voracious reader and became proficient in four languages. At age seventeen, his father sent him to Liverpool to work as a translator.

Sabatini began writing romances at the age of twenty, and his short fiction was published in a number of national magazines. In 1905, he quit his translator job to devote himself to writing full time, producing a book a year. That same year he married a daughter of a well-to-do Liverpool paper merchant, and four years later they had a son, Rafael-Angelo. Sabatini became a British citizen during World War I and worked in the British Intelligence as a translator. In the 1920s, with the publication of the international bestsellers Scaramouche and Captain Blood, he became an overnight success.

In 1927, Rafael was devastated by the death of their only child, who was killed in an automobile accident. He fell into a deep depression, wrote very little, divorced his wife, and suffered financially from the Great Depression. However, in 1931 life improved when he moved outside London to Wye and remarried at age sixty. In his later years, he spent his time writing, fishing, and skiing in Switzerland, where he died in 1950.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on April 05, 2010

Rafael Sabatini! Oh, this generation doesn't even KNOW. This is a classic swashbuckling novel by the author of Captain Blood, and it is deliciously over the top. Handsome, powerful Oliver Tressilian, in love with the fair Rosamund, is working to overcome the opposition that Rosamund's sleazy brother......more

Goodreads review by Dfordoom on September 29, 2011

I have a bit of a weakness for swashbuckling tales of adventure, and I think it’s fair to say that the greatest writer of such stories in the English language was Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950). And The Sea Hawk, originally published in 1915, is generally regarded as one of his finest works. Sabatini wa......more

Goodreads review by Pranta on May 04, 2016

Sometimes roots of all evil lies within mankind, equally as a species. I won't say anything but that, because I try to respect both men and women equally, but ... Well, read the story and you shall understand what I mean. The Sea-Hawk, indeed, was a epic saga. So much story within one book, so ma......more

Goodreads review by Gary on October 17, 2012

I first came to Rafael Sabatini through his excellent 1922 pirate novel Captain Blood, and then read his fine 1921 swashbuckling tale, Scaramouche. Continuing this journey through Sabatini's novels, I've just completed his 1915 pirate intrigue, The Sea-Hawk. The Sea-Hawk doesn't disappoint, living u......more