Jesi, a
diminutive
city of the
Italian
Marches, was
the
birthplace
of Rafael
Sabatini,
and here he
spent his
early youth.
At Jesi
there are
medieval
walls, and a
sunny
piazza, with
its ancient
cobblestone
paved
streets
which once
echoed to
the armored
knights and
the iron
music of
their
horses'
hooves,
still, to
the
imaginative
ear, vibrate
with the
past.
The city is
glamorous
with those
centuries he
makes live
again in his
novels with
all their
violence and
beauty.
If, from the
first,
history and
legend had
not thus
been a vivid
and visible
thing to the
child, it is
doubtful if
the man
could have
re-created
the past
with such
fascinating
reality.
The son of
itinerant
opera
singers, he
was born in
Italy, and
educated in
Switzerland
and
Portugal.
As with
Joseph
Conrad,
English is
his adopted
tongue as
never
attended an
English
school,
receiving
his
practical
knowledge of
the English
language
from his
mother, an
Englishwoman.
He himself
married a
Lancashire
lady, and
for some
years has
been a
British
subject
living in
London.
He has
rescued the
historical
novel from
the literary
dust-bin and
wears with
elegance and
grace the
inherited
mantle of
Dumas.
At the age
of eighteen
he spoke
five
languages
with
fluency.
He was
influenced
by the work
of Mary
Johnston,
but does not
greatly
admire Sir
Walter
Scott.
While
novel-writing
is his
favorite
amusement,
salmon
fishing is
his chief
business in
life.
Once upon a
time he was
a publisher
by
profession.
He had been
struggling
for twenty
years before
"Scaramouche"
finally put
him on the
map.
He refers to
the book as
his
Columbus; it
discovered
America for
him.
His
popularity
is merely a
by-product
of his
talent.
He plays
tennis in
summer and
skis in
winter.
His pages
are bright
with the
flash of
cutlass and
rapier.
His chapters
are alive
with
marching men
and painted
pirate
ships.
He has never
written an
autobiographical
novel of
adolescence
nor followed
any passing
fad or
fancy.
Jesi, a
diminutive
city of the
Italian
Marches, was
the
birthplace
of Rafael
Sabatini,
and here he
spent his
early youth.
At Jesi
there are
medieval
walls, and a
sunny
piazza, with
its ancient
cobblestone
paved
streets
which once
echoed to
the armored
knights and
the iron
music of
their
horses'
hooves,
still, to
the
imaginative
ear, vibrate
with the
past.
The city is
glamorous
with those
centuries he
makes live
again in his
novels with
all their
violence and
beauty.
If, from the
first,
history and
legend had
not thus
been a vivid
and visible
thing to the
child, it is
doubtful if
the man
could have
re-created
the past
with such
fascinating
reality.