The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure

by Lawrence Ellsworth

The word “swashbuckler” conjures up an indelible a hero who’s a bit of a rogue but has his own code of honor, an adventurer with laughter on his lips and a flashing sword in his hand. This larger-than-life figure is regularly declared passé, but the swashbuckler is too appealing to ever really die. Who wouldn’t want to face deadly danger with confidence and élan? Who can deny the thrill of clashing blades, hairbreadth escapes, and daring rescues, of facing vile treachery with dauntless courage and passionate devotion?The swashbuckler tradition was born out of legends like the Knights of the Round Table and of Robin Hood, revived in the early 19th century by authors such as Sir Walter Scott, then caught hold with the publication of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers in 1844. For the next century, it was arguably the world’s leading form of adventure fiction.Featuring selections by twenty hugely popular writers from the last century including Rafael Sabatini; Johnston McCulley (creator of the Zorro character); Alexandre Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle; and Pierce Egan, author of Robin Hood, this anthology is dedicated to the swashbuckler’s historical adventures by masters of the genre. Most of these stories have been out of print for decades; some have never before been collected in book form.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Literature, Anthologies, Action

604 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2014

About the author

Lawrence Ellsworth is the pen name of Lawrence Schick. An authority on historical adventure fiction, Ellsworth is the translator of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Red Sphinx, and Blood Royal. Lawrence was born in the United States and now lives in Dublin.

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin -- a collection of stories, mostly from the early part of the 20th Century, although the oldest dates from the 1860s, about various musketeers, pirates, etc., off having glorious adventures.

Odds are, you'll recognize at least some of the names here -- Alexandre Dumas most obviously (represented by an excerpt from his Musketeers-adjacent novel The Red Sphinx:), and maybe Harold Lamb (with a story, naturally, about Khlit the Cossack). And additionally you'll recognize at least a few characters from their appearances in other media, even if you've never read the source material -- Johnston McCulley's The Mark of Zorro and Emmuska Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel. And the then-800 pound gorilla of the swashbuckling adventure genre, Rafael Sabatini has not one but two stories, one featuring Captain Blood.

Again, as always with an anthology, some stories will be more to your taste than others, but I enjoyed them all, and if you want to spend time in filthy Parisian alleys or Caribbean pirate stews, this is absolutely the book for you.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather enjoyable overall but mixed bag of pirate and swashbuckling stories that I don’t read that often gravitating more towards fantasy and horror. I would say my favorite is the Sabatini Captain Blood offering.
But Ellsworth does due diligence with representing all sorts of authors and story types.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another thank-you to GR's First-Reads in exchange for my honest review.

The book, a compilation of famous and obscure swashbucklers certainly lived up to its subtitle! The author has covered each of the various "subgenres" of swashbucklers: the dashing pirate, the musketeer [not the one who comes to mind first :)], the jester-swashbuckler, the courtier, and others. I skipped around and read only those stories or excerpts from novels of my interest. The writing's a bit old-fashioned, mannered, and sometimes creaky. Most of the stories are from the twenties from the pulp magazine Adventure or before [e.g., writings of Conan Doyle, Dumas, Baroness Orczy]. I'm enjoying the compiler's brief biographies of the authors and what influence their writings have had on modern heroes. The quality of the collection varies, but the compiler has tried to be comprehensive. I'm sure there is something to everyone's taste here. There is so much to choose from! This is an outstanding collection.

My favorites of the 17 herein:

"The sin of the Bishop of Modenstein": a bishop rescues Princess Osra from kidnapping and gains back for King Rudolf the castle and demesne of Zenda. Set in the author's fictional Ruritania. I'd like to read The Heart of Princess Osra from which this short story is excerpted.

"Señor Zorro pays a visit": our introduction to the masked righter of wrongs, Zorro.

"How the Brigadier played for a kingdom": Brigadier Etienne Gerard is outwitted by a German princess and is unable to gain sympathy for France through her toying with him. Conan Doyle's character of the Brigadier shows his influence on the Flashman character.

"Robin Hood meets Guy of Guisborne": their duel to the death

"The King of Spain's Will": Is Charles V's will a fake?

"Crillon's Stake": how a lucky gamble leads to saving a king's life

"The Black Death": Sir John Hawkwood escapes danger and in doing so, avoids the plague.

Pure escapist adventure, pure fun!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun time! I didn't love all the stories but that's the nature of an anthology. I got to experience Zorro, Robin Hood, Captain Blood and Prisoner of Zenda stories!

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. And, perhaps, if I were only reviewing the last few stories, it might have gotten more stars. The problem, for me, is that I expected more "piratey" stuff than I got. The book was at least half "musketeery," which is fine, I guess, but I'm not into the French Revolution and the history of Louis the whateverth.

And, keep in mind that I am quite literal about my star ratings, here. Three stars means I liked it. I just didn't "really" like it.

There are 18 stories (three of them were poems) in the book. Some of them were really good (even some of the "musketeery" ones, and some of them not so much. Among my favorites were "Sword and Mitre," the first tale, by Rafael Sabatini, "Pirates' Gold, by H. Bedford-Jones, "Robin Hood Meets Guy of Gisborne," by Pierce Egan, "The Cabaret de la Liberte," by Baroness Orczy (in which I was introduced to one Scarlett Pimpernel, sink me)(this caused me to watch the 1982 film of The Scarlett Pimpernel, which was great fun), "Captain Blood's Dilemma," by Rafael Sabatini (the only one to have two tales in this volume), "Crillon's Stake," by Stanley J. Weyman, and "The Fight for Black Bartlemy's Treasure," by Jeffery Farnol.

Ironically, two of the more boring stories in the group were by the more well-known authors. "How the Brigadier Played for A Kingdom," by Arthur Conan Doyle, and "White Plume on the Mountain," by Alexandre Dumas, were snoozers.

I'm sure that I will be vehemently disagreed with, and that's okay. This is, after all, simply my opinion, which is worth a plug nickel. But it's still my opinion.

If you're looking for pirate adventures, you will be half-satisfied by this volume. Ditto if you are looking for French Revolution/musketeer tales. If you're a great fan of both, then you will, no doubt love this book.

[Marko · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wife found me this gem: a thick collection of swashbuckling tales from several masters of the field - many of them unknown to me until now. You can find all of the big names here, from Alexandre Dumas and Baroness Orczy to Rafael Sabatini, but also some less well known names such as Stanley J. Feyman and Anthony Hope. Pirates, swordsmen, nobles - you can find it all here.

The collection begins strongly with Sabatini, Hope, H. Bedford-Jones and others and it continues that way until we get to the tenth story. Surprisingly, Ellsworth has decided to include a few stories that are not really stand-alone, but parts of larger wholes. That is not so bad when he gives a short excerpt of McCulley's Zorro novel that works very well as a short story, but the tenth story is basically the final few chapters of Alexandre Dumas' White Plume on the Mountains. I can understand providing the beginnings of stories as examples of the authors' work, but spoiling the end is not really something that I can see myself enjoying. Luckily, there are only a couple of such inclusions in this collection and all the other stories are very strong and introduce the reader to a wide variety of swashbuckling authors.

The writing style of all of these stories is, of course, somewhat aged to a modern reader, but I have always found it part of the attraction with these sorts of stories. As such, I can full-heartedly recommend this collection to any fan of the genre or someone just looking for a fun, adventurous read.

Full review:
https://susimetsa.blogspot.fi/2018/01...

[Benji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellsworth has curated a fantastic collection of swashbuckling stories in this Big Book. I am a beginner to the genre by way of Sword & Sorcery fiction and I have greatly enjoyed every story I read in this book. I have read Ellsworth's explanations for his choices in which stories to include and I find his reasoning sound. I have also agreed with his evaluations of each story in his introduction to each author preceding them.

I have been reading Ellsworth's translations of Dumas' Musketeers books which drove me to explore more deeply both the genre and Ellsworth's books. He is clearly highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the genre and that is reflected in this book.

Almost every story I have read has driven me to seek out additional tales from those writers. My favorite story in the book is The Bride of Jagannath, which, although as Howard Andrew Jones has pointed out it is perhaps less Swashbuckly than the rest it was greatly engaging both in its own merits as a well written story with fascinating characters and as a clear inspiration for Robert E. Howard's creation of the Sword & Sorcery genre.

I also particularly enjoyed Sabatini, Hope, Levett-Yeats, McCulley, Bloundelle-Burton, Angellotti... I feel like I am listing everyone and perhaps I should. I did skip the stories that are excerpts from novels, not because I was uninterested but because I was so interested I thought I'd be best off to read the novels themselves! My favorite books inspire me to read more and this one has really ballooned by TBR list.

Just a really great collection overall. I loved every moment of it.

[Joe Kessler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book collects some older adventure stories about pirates, musketeers, and so on, many of which had been out of print for decades before the collection was published in 2014. The quality varies dramatically from story to story, and I find that I tend to like best those which are actually just excerpts from longer works, like Rafael Sabatini's serialized Captain Blood: His Odyssey or Johnston McCulley's original Zorro novel. I'd recommend that interested readers check out one of those, rather than chance the mixed bag that is this collection as a whole.

[Claudia Sorsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inconsistent, but that was't exactly a surprise.

Overall, excellent fun. Dan can mock my love of what he calls "land pirates" all he wants; I love swashbuckling stories!

In fairness, he got this for me to read while I was recovering from some ankle surgery, and it was a great choice for that.

[Rachel Feeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as advertised, an enjoyable collection of swashbuckling tales. For me, Dumas has been a longtime favorite, but I'd forgotten how much I love historical adventures. The sampling of authors has given me lots of ideas for books to add to my future reading list.

[Alan Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

classic tales of musketeers and pirates

[C.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughgoing fun.

[Rebecca Lartigue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun anthology--I just dipped in and out of it, so I can't comment on every story or author. H. Bedford-Jones's "Pirates' Gold" is the most fun, so far. Looking forward to tracking down more of his pieces.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this one's a case of "it's not the book, it's me." Several of the stories fell flat because I couldn't work out the tone, or because I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to care about the main character (two things that aren't entirely disconnected - reading about a character who's an ass is very different if the author knows their an ass than if the author thinks they're an ideal hero.). I think some of the excerpts also suffered from being such - in the whole work, the audience would have a better feel for the characters and stakes and such.

I was entertained by the surprising number of swashbuckling clergymen. And I liked the stories they featured in, as well as the Zorro excerpt.

There is also another bit to the "it's me" end of things - while fight scenes are gripping at the movies, I tend to find them rather boring in print. Partly that's because they're really hard to write - the audience really needs to see exactly what the author saw for them to work, and partly that's because they need more stakes (at least for me) in written form. A random sword fight at the movies, simply by view of being visual, can draw me in. In a book, I really need to care about the stakes and/or the character(s), and if I don't, I find myself wanting to skip to the end.

[Christian Büttner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure I received this book as part of a giveaway.

This compilation delivers exactly what ir says it will. Short stories,adventures with rogues, pirates, musketeers, and other such folk, written by the masters of the genre.

These are classic authors though, so don't expect modern language, Also expect words, here and there, in the language of the setting. Stories in France contain outbursts of French. Anyone who had read translations of Dumas, for example, will know this already.

The stories themselves are fun, captivating, but short and to the point. Lots going on in a small amount of pages.

The small bios written by the compiler are succinct, interesting, and provide context for both the author and the story.

All in all, well worth a read and an enjoyable read of these lesser known works of some fantastic writers.

[Lo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly curated collection with things I hadn't seen, and suggestions for further reading for each author. Occasionally some awesome historical context as well, for instance, I didn't know that one Zorro story originated the entire superhero genre.

If you find archaic writing difficult or unpleasant to read, this is not for you. If you don't mind using context and Google to figure out nautical terms and such, or you regularly read this sort of thing, this is well worth the time.

[Bruce Nordstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

They asked at the beginning of this review: "What category do you think this book fits in?" All I could think was, "What Category doesn't it fit in?"

Great book. Loved everything about it. Found a half dozen old/ new authors I will be reading more about, and their works.

Great stuff. And the best news of all is that this is online. Enjoy.

[Michael Moe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haiku review:

Great big adventure.
If you enjoy old-school prose,
You'll have lots of fun.

[Steve Goble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun, short examples of swashbucklers -- tales of heroes, swordplay, intrigue, villains, plots and close calls. Sabatini, Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle and more.