Captain Blood: His Odyssey and Its Mass Market Paperback Covers

A brief chronology of mass market paperback covers from various publishers of Captain Blood: His Odyssey. The cover art ranges from mere pro forma to quite elaborate. Book cover art, including dust jackets, has one principal purpose beyond identifying the book and author: to entice readers into buying the book. Historical accuracy is secondary at best, and often entirely ignored–and sometimes even the actual text of the book itself is ignored, with tropes substituted instead. In any case, enjoy. 🙂

Pocket Books edition, UK, 1940, with color restored from a faded copy. The artwork is intended to represent the duel on the beach between Peter Blood and Levasseur.

Undated US Armed Forces edition printed during WWII by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin. The cover of the book depicted was never actually published except on the cover of this edition. A pirate with cutlass, a flag of skull and bones–this is all that’s necessary to lure the reader in.

Pocket Books edition, UK, fifth printing, 1943. The scene is not tied any specific one from the book, and was likely inspired by the dustjacket of Captain Blood Returns, see below. The sword hilt is entirely fanciful.

Cover art by Dean Cornwell for the dustjacket of Captain Blood Returns (1930). The same illustration in blue and white was used in “The Expiation of Madame Coulevain,” a 1930 magazine short story later published as part of Captain Blood Returns.

US Pyramid edition, 1961. Again, the cover is tied to no specific scene in the book, and includes anachronistic Hollywood Spaniards in morions, and the obligatory damsel in distress at the hero’s feet. The cover is intended to entice, not to accurately illustrate the novel.

UK Arrow edition, undated. 1950s or early 1960s? Sharp-eyed readers may note the black swan figurehead: the image was taken from a Hutchinson hardcover edition of Rafael Sabatini’s The Black Swan.

UK Pan edition, second printing 1963, original 1961. Again, the cover does not depict a scene from the book, but instead evokes its atmosphere. As in many Captain Blood illustrations, the protagonist has a mustache, unlike in the book (although he did have one in the original magazine series). The cutlass is both anachronistic and incorrect for Peter Blood. Unusually, the Spanish ship on the left is flying the correct flag.

US Pyramid edition, third printing, 1967. This is the first edition I ever read, and its cover remains one of my favorites.

Publicity still for The Sea Hawk, 1940. The cover above was inspired by this photograph, and probably by publicity stills from Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk showing Errol Flynn on the gunwale during a boarding action.

UK Pan edition, 5th printing, 1974. Although the woman resembles Arabella Bishop, she is in fact, given the scene, the daughter of Governor d’Ogeron. And again, the mustache and, incorrectly (although common in Hollywood and fiction illustrations), riding boots.

Without doubt the most elaborate and artistic of mass market Captain Blood covers. US Bantam edition, 1976, one of my favorites. See the image below.

Inside cover art, highly unusual in mass market paperbacks but occasionally found in trade paperbacks.

Much-abridged and simplified edition by E. F. Dodd for middle school / junior high school readers, published by Macmillan originally in 1964. This is the 1991 printing. These “Stories to Remember” editions were intended to make novels accessible to ESL readers and as to provide an easy introduction to novels for native speakers. I’m of two minds regarding such abridgements: on the one hand, they may encourage readers to try the full-length novels they might not otherwise attempt. On the other hand, I first read Captain Blood at 12 or 13, and I’ve a natural aversion to abridgement in any form, considering it destructive to the author’s work.

Most editions after the 1970s are larger trade paperbacks lacking original cover art. Publishers try to spend as little money as possible, often leaving cover art either simple or taken directly from artworks in the public domain. Howard Pyle’s pirate art is a common source for Captain Blood editions, and for the cover art of many books on the subject of piracy as well (including one of my own, The Buccaneer’s Realm).

Copyright Treasure Light Press LLC, 2021. First posted March 4, 2021. Last Updated October 9, 2022. Text by Benerson Little.