A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates

First published in 1724, this compilation offers biographical accounts of pirates active in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in the early eighteenth century. Under the name Captain Charles Johnson-often linked to, though not proved to be, Daniel Defoe-it narrates the careers of figures such as Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Captain Kidd. Each life is a sequence of voyages, captures, quarrels, and trials, with attention to shipboard articles, plunder, and the geography of the Caribbean and West African coasts. The book mixes reportage, legend, and moralising; it is the chief period source that later pirate fiction draws on.

Bound in black cloth cover printed with a white illustration. Frontispiece and 35 integrated black & white illustrations. Black endpapers printed with spot UV pattern. Black slipcase.