Columbus

Before ships can cross the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus must persuade the people who control money, vessels and royal favour to support his western voyage. Waiting, rejection and negotiation are as important to his struggle as seamanship. Rafael Sabatini follows the navigator at the Spanish court, through the early ocean expeditions and in his relationship with Beatriz Enríquez de Arana. The novel places a familiar historical figure among private hopes and competing political interests. What later readers recognise as a famous voyage remains, for its participants, an uncertain undertaking. Court intrigue and romance accompany the maritime adventure. This is a fictional interpretation of a real life, concerned with character and ambition rather than a documentary biography.