Scaramouche

“Last Wednesday he had been engaged in moving an audience of Rennes to anger; on this Wednesday he was to move an audience of Guichen to mirth....”

Once he was André-Louis Moreau, a lawyer raised by nobility, unconcerned with the growing discontent among France’s lower class—until his friend was mercilessly struck down by a member of the aristocracy.
 
Now he is Scaramouche. Speaking out against the unjust French government, he takes refuge with a nomadic band of actors and assumes the role of the clown Scaramouche—a comic figure with a very serious message….
 
Set during the French Revolution, this novel of swashbuckling romance is also a thought-provoking commentary on class, inequality, and the individual’s role in society—a story that has become Rafael Sabatini’s enduring legacy.
 
With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) was born in Italy to two opera singers. He often joined his parents on their professional tours of Europe. In 1918, he became a British subject and worked for British Intelligence during World War I. He published his first novel, The Lovers of Yvonne, at the age of twenty-seven and continued to produce numerous historical novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and biographies. Scaramouche was first published in 1921, followed by Captain Blood in 1922.
 
Gary Hoppenstand is a professor of American Studies at Michigan State University. He has published numerous articles and books on topics ranging from literature to popular culture, including Popular Fiction: An Anthology and In Search of the Paper Tiger.