Captain Blood

Classic Fiction · No. 24 — A physician condemned as a rebel takes command of his own freedom.

• Classic Fiction
• 35 min
• Ages 12–99
• 6 chapters

About this audiobook

During the failed Monmouth Rebellion, the Irish physician Peter Blood treats a wounded man and is convicted of treason by Judge Jeffreys despite taking no part in the rising. Sentenced to transportation, he is sold into forced labor in Barbados and purchased by Arabella Bishop, niece of the brutal plantation owner Colonel Bishop. When Spanish raiders attack Bridgetown, Blood and other prisoners seize the attackers' ship and escape. Elected captain, Blood builds a formidable pirate company with a code against needless cruelty, though the retelling never treats piracy or colonial violence as harmless romance. He repeatedly outmaneuvers French, Spanish, and English rivals, clashes with the cruel buccaneer Levasseur, and rescues captives including Arabella. Believing Blood no better than the villains around him, Arabella wounds him with her judgment; he must decide whether honor is performance or practice. News of the Glorious Revolution changes the government that condemned him. After Blood defends Jamaica from a French assault, he is appointed governor, spares his old enemy Colonel Bishop, and earns the chance to build a life with Arabella rather than merely win her.

Why it's worth a listen

Peter Blood wants only to practice medicine, but treating a wounded rebel sends him through a rigged trial, forced labor in Barbados, and finally onto the deck of a captured Spanish ship. He becomes a pirate because the law has abandoned justice, then tries to hold his crew to rules the empire itself ignores. It is a clever, sweeping sea adventure that asks whether a person forced outside the law can still be governed by conscience.

A question to keep

Can a person forced outside the law remain governed by conscience?

Based on the book by Retold from Rafael Sabatini, published by Emma's Library original retelling

Chapters

1. The Surgeon and the Rebels
2. The Red Dust of Barbados
3. The Capture of the Cinco Llagas
4. The King of the Buccaneers
5. The Judgment of Arabella
6. A Question to Keep