Bardelys the Magnificent

Bardelyls the Magnificent, "Being an Account of the Strange Wooing pursued by the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol; Marquis of Bardelys, and of the things that in the course of it befell him in Languedoc, in the year of the Rebellion," tells the story of the Marquis de Bardelys who bets he can marry Roxalanne de Lavédan, a noble woman, his attempts to win the bet, and his eventual finding love. Thes story takes place in France in the early seventeenth century. According to Wikipedia, "Rafael Sabatini (April 29, 1875 - February 13, 1950) was an Italian/British writer of novels of romance and adventure. Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi, Italy, to an English mother and Italian father. His parents were opera singers who became teachers....he was the master of five languages. He quickly added a sixth language English to his linguistic collection. He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, "all the best stories are written in English." After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini went to work as a writer. He wrote short stories in the 1890s, and his first novel came out in 1902. It took Sabatini roughly a quarter of a century of hard work before he attained success with Scaramouche in 1921. The novel, a historical romantic set during the French Revolution, became an international best-seller. It was followed by the equally successful Captain Blood in 1922. All of his earlier books were rushed into reprints, the most popular of which was The Sea Hawk from 1915. Sabatini was a prolific writer; he produced a new book approximately every year, and maintained a great deal of popularity with the reading public through the decades that followed."