Jolly Roger (Dover Maritime) - Softcover

Pringle, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486418235 ISBN 13: 9780486418230

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2001

Synopsis

"Highly entertaining and well-documented." — TheNew York Times
While history has painted most pirates as "abominable brutes," capable of the worst cruelties and driven by insatiable greed, the author of this fascinating study insists that pirates have suffered more than their share of bad press, mainly from popularizing writers trying to sell books. He notes, for example, that Henry Morgan always carried privateering commissions signed by the governor of Jamaica, and that many pirates bought commissions (and pardons) from governors of the American colonies.
With this in mind, Mr. Pringle tries to separate fact from fiction in chronicling the activities of the infamous men and women who sailed under the black flag during the great age of piracy. Beginning with Sir Francis Drake, the "Father of Modern Piracy," he examines the lives and deeds of such outlaws as Morgan, Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Anne Bonney, and Mary Read, as well as a raft of lesser-known scoundrels, finding, for the most part, that the myths about these maritime marauders are largely overblown.
Pirates, for example, never made their prisoners walk the plank. This was a nineteenth-century fiction with no basis in reality. Moreover, the atrocities pirates are accused of, if true, were no worse, and sometimes not nearly as bad, as the horrific punishments (brandings, drawing and quartering, burning alive, etc.), meted out by legitimate governments of the age.
In short, while piracy undoubtedly was a fact of life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the reality was far less brutal and blood-soaked than the sensationalizing writers of the time and of a later day would have us believe. The true state of affairs is unfolded in this engrossing, impeccably accurate history, sure to delight any armchair sailor, maritime historian or old salt with its balanced, highly readable study of the seagoing brigands who sailed under the Jolly Roger.

About this title

From Library Journal:

We all know the literary and Hollywood image of pirates as one-eyed, rum-swilling brutes sailing the seas in search of booty. While that has some basis in reality, no one ever really walked a plank or strolled around with a parrot on his shoulder. For the most part, these guys were common crooks looking to make a quick buck any way they could, and a ship far from home with salable goods in its hold was an easy target. Once European governments began sending their navies to catch and punish the thieves, most of these brigands went back to legitimate sailing jobs. Pringle's 1953 volume separates the fact from the fiction regarding these scourges of the sea.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0486418235
• ISBN 13: 9780486418230
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 294