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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 but printed during WWII by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin. The cover of the book depicted was never actually published except in this edition. A pirate with cutlass, a flag of skull and bones–this is all that’s…

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By Benerson Little in Uncategorized on March 4, 2021.

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