Skip to content
The Tavern Knight — cover
Get your copy
Aeneas Press edition 20th Century

The Tavern Knight

by Rafael Sabatini 1875–1950

The book, and the century it came out of.

Worcester, 1651: the King’s cause is finished, and a drunken cavalier called Crispin Galliard — who has spent eighteen years looking for the man who burned his house and killed his wife — is chained to a young Puritan he ought to hate. Sabatini spoke five languages and wrote in English because, he said, all the best stories are told in it; the Civil War here is dirty, and the hero is genuinely unpleasant. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Brouwer, Hals and Quast among them.

He whom they called the Tavern Knight laughed an evil laugh—such a laugh as might fall from the lips of Satan in a sardonic moment.
The first sentence of The Tavern Knight
A note on this edition

The Tavern Knight, by Rafael Sabatini, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 208 pages
Reading time
about 4 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785486798245
The plates

60 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

The Smokers by Adriaen Brouwer, Adriaen Brouwer
The Smokers by Adriaen Brouwer Adriaen Brouwer 1637
The foot operation, Pieter Quast
The foot operation Pieter Quast 1638
View of the city of Hulst, Cornelis de Vos
View of the city of Hulst Cornelis de Vos 1628
Fishermen on the Sea-shore, David Teniers the Younger
Fishermen on the Sea-shore David Teniers the Younger 1638
View of the Castle of Egmond aan den Hoef, Claes Jacobsz van der Heck
View of the Castle of Egmond aan den Hoef Claes Jacobsz van der Heck 1638
Fair near the Heiligewegspoort, Gerrit Lundens
Fair near the Heiligewegspoort Gerrit Lundens 1650
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of The Tavern Knight as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of The Tavern Knight as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

The Tavern Knight, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Adventure & the Sea shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486798245, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of The Tavern Knight?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Rafael Sabatini's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 208 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
If this one suits you
The Tavern Knight
$4.99
Buy the ebook