About the book: 2018 / Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) - English writer, famous for his adventure historical works, work on which he began by reading books on history, from them he moved on to documents, to artistic and epistolary works of the era, in which he saw the most important source for recreating the “living reality of the past.” He believed that a historical novelist should study the period he depicts with such care that he feels at home in it. But if he knows his craft as a writer, Sabatini warned, he will not clutter the story with acquired knowledge, but will only fill and illuminate his narrative with it. In historical novels, especially those of an adventure nature, truth and the author’s fiction can be in very different relationships. According to Sabatini, the author has the right to create the plot of a work not only on true events, but also on a certain share of the artist’s fiction. By his own admission, the writer, “who was not interested in anything but history,” called by critics “the Alexandre Dumas of modern fiction,” made the characters of his books people of past eras, both those who really existed - from Cesare Borgia, False Dmitry, Columbus, to Robespierre, Charlotte Corday and the Duke of Wellington - and fictional heroes. The second volume of the two-volume edition includes selected works of the author. Contents: CAROLINA FOOLED BY FORTUNE BELLARION FAVORITE KING-BLACK SWAN-VENETIAN MASKAMECH ISLAM ARQUIZ DE CARABASIGROCCOLUMBCESARE BORGIA: The Life of Cesare BorgiaThe Duke's CourtThe Banner of the BullCAPRICES OF CLIIO:Nights of HistoryEntertaining historical reading for bedtime V-2.0 Proofreading: MBK