Scaramouche

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Scaramouche is not only Rafael Sabatini's crowning literary achievement, it is one of the most engaging, thought-provoking and exciting historical novels ever written. Andre-Louis Moreau, (or Scaramouche, as he later becomes known), is a fascinatingly complex protagonist. Courageous, intelligent, quick-witted and intensely moral, Moreau is a character whose personal quest for revenge against the villainous Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr is a masterfully-woven story of swashbuckling action, romance and social conflict during the turbulent years of the French Revolution. Scaramouche is a well-born lawyer, fugitive, dramatic actor, expert swordsman, revolutionary politician and mob-inciting orator. Sabatini sets Moreau upon an intriguing path of fate, development and discovery, a fictionalized yet compelling account of a single man's ultimate test of human character as the world around him spirals into madness. Rafael Sabatini has often been compared to Alexandre Dumas (author of the Three Musketeers, the Count of Monte Cristo) as a master of historical fiction. Sabatini has created in Scaramouche an historical action-adventure novel that transcends all modern action-adventure writers in that Moreau, his protagonist, is a thoroughly multi-dimensional character. Though Moreau is driven by his hatred and quest for revenge, the spirit of his character is not defined by them, and the conflict of these passions with his ideals brings depth and substance to his exploits on the Theatre Feydau, the fencing halls of Paris, the floor of the National Assembly and his pursuit of the beautiful Aline de Kercadiou. Duels, intrigue, political introspection, romance, and more duels-all are present in Scaramouche. Enjoy! About the Author Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950) was an Italian/British writer of novels of romance and adventure. After 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. In 1905 he married Ruth Goad Dixon, the daughter of a Liverpool merchant. It took Sabatini roughly a quarter of a century of hard work before he attained success with Scaramouche in 1921. This brilliant novel of the French Revolution became an international best-seller. It was followed by the equally successful Captain Blood in 1922. All of his earlier books were rushed into reprints, the most popular of which was The Sea Hawk from 1915. Sabatini was a prolific writer; he produced a new book approximately every year. While he perhaps didn't achieve the mammoth success of Scaramouche and Captain Blood, nonetheless Sabatini still maintained a great deal of popularity with the reading public through the decades that followed. The public knew that in picking up a Sabatini book, they could always count upon a good read, and his following was loyal and extensive. By the 1940s, illness forced the writer to slow his prolific method of composition. However, he did write several additional works even during that time. He died February 13, 1950 in Switzerland. He is buried at Adelboden, Switzerland. On his head stone his wife had written, "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad", the first line of his best-known work, Scaramouche. Another adventure from Sabatini's hero. In Scaramouche the Kingmaker, Andre Louis again dons his famous and much-admired disguise to embark upon a new adventure