Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950) was one of the foremost writers of historical and adventure fiction of his time. The master of the swashbuckling tale, he created the characters Scaramouche and Captain Blood, and his novel The Sea Hawk, which sold a million copies, was made into a celebrated film starring Errol Flynn.

Sabatini was also a prolific writer of short stories, some of which were collected during his lifetime - although many lay forgotten in old periodicals until discovered by researcher and anthologist Jack Adrian, who has selected the best for this volume: twenty stories, seventeen of which have never been reprinted in book form.

The stories range in historical time from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and feature a splendid array of rogues, vagabonds, shyster lawyers, cutpurses, quacks, and conmen.

Full of pace, incident, and plot, the stories often contain a strong element of crime, mystery, and suspense. Although hanged at Tyburn, Sir Geoffrey Swayne, in 'The Risen Dead', is resurrected only to have his plot to gain a fortune foiled by his vengeful wife; in 'The Plague of Ghosts', the ingenious Capoulade, thief turned police spy, breaks up a forger's den and in the process cracks an 'impossible crime'.

In the second half of the book, a series of stories featuring Casanova, Sabatini takes nine colourful exploits from the notorious Memoirs of the libertine, swordsman, and wit, and retells them with humour and gusto. Sabatini's works had a great influence on later writers of popular historical fiction, and George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels and an admirer of his writing, contributes a Foreword to this volume.