This is the original history about pirates, written during the “Golden Age of Pyracy” when pirates were still alive and well and very much a real threat. No one really knows who Captain Charles Johnson was (Daniel DeFoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, was once considered a likely suspect), but whoever he was, he sure knew his stuff. Taking most of his information from newspaper accounts and from pirate trial transcripts, Johnson also interviewed seamen and sailors for vivid, true-to-life descriptions. Johnson’s accounts of the lives of men like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd gave them almost mythical status and they soon became the most legendary of pirates, inspiring almost everything we know and love best about the traditional, classic pirate. From peg legs to parrots on the shoulder to black eye patches, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates had it first.

posted Feb 26, 2010 at 2:58PM

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