Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950)
was born in Italy to two opera singers, and often joined his parents on their professional tours of Europe. In 1918, he became a British subject and worked for the British Intelligence during World War I. He published his first novel,
The Lovers of Yvonne, at the age of 27, and continued to produce numerous historical novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and some biographies.
Scaramouche was first published in 1921, followed by
Captain Blood in 1922. Sabatini died in 1950 while vacationing at a Swiss ski resort.
Gary Hoppenstand is a professor in the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University. He has researched and published widely in the areas of popular culture and popular fiction studies, and he edited the Penguin Classics editions of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda/Rupert of Hentzau and A.E.W. Mason's The Four Feathers. He is the past president of the Popular Culture Association, and the current editor of The Journal of Popular Culture.
