The Duel on the Beach, Part I: In Fiction

A raid into the pirates’ world.

Swordplay & Swashbucklers

N. C. Wyeth’s illustration for the short story “The Duel on the Beach” by Rafael Sabatini, in Ladies’ Home Journal, September 1931. The story was the basis for the 1932 novel The Black Swan. The painting was also used for the dust jacket, and in some editions the frontispiece, of the novel. The original is privately held. For more information, see the Brandywine River Museum of Art. Author’s collection.

It’s all too easy to imagine a duel on the beach between pirates or, as fiction and film often have it, between pirate captains. A sandy beach, palm trees, spectators often including both pirates and a woman in distress, a tropical sea and sky–a duel is mandatory in the genre if only because the setting demands one.

This blog post is part one of a likely five part series on the classical piratical duel on the beach, a…

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