A General History of the Pyrates
1724 book published in Britain
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Its author uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, generally considered a pen name for one of London's writer-publishers. The book also contains the first recorded use of the name Jolly Roger for the pirate flag, and shows the skull and crossbones design. It is not considered a reliable historical source by many modern scholars and academics of pirate history.
History
First appearing in Charles Rivington's shop in London, the book sold so well that by 1726 an enlarged fourth edition had appeared. It pandered to the British public's taste for the exotic; revelling in graphic stories on the high seas. English naval historian David Cordingly writes: "It has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates." Scottish novelists Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island) and J. M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan featuring Captain Hook) both identified Johnson's General History of the Pyrates as one of their major influences, and Stevenson even borrowed one character's name (Israel Hands) from a list of Blackbeard's crew which appeared in Johnson's book.
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Authorship
The author, who uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, has remained unknown in spite of numerous attempts by historians to discover their identity.
In 1932, literary scholar John Robert Moore argued that Daniel Defoe was the true author of A General History. Other sources, including a 2004 paper, suggest that the author could have been publisher Nathaniel Mist, or somebody working for Mist. Author Colin Woodard, in The Republic of Pirates, considers attribution of Johnson's work to Defoe to be erroneous, and prefers the hypothesis that Johnson was Mist. Other hypotheses include multiple writers including Mist being involved in the construction of the book.
Contents
A General History introduced many features which later became common in pirate literature, such as pirates with missing legs or eyes, the notion of pirates burying treasure, and the name of the pirate flag the Jolly Roger. The author specifically cites two pirates as having named their flag Jolly Roger (named after the first Pirate and his crew): Welsh pirate Bartholomew Roberts in June 1721, and English pirate Francis Spriggs in December 1723. The book gives an almost mythical status to the more colourful characters, such as the infamous English pirates Blackbeard and Henry Every. It provides the standard account of the lives of many people still famous in the 21st century, and has influenced pirate literature of Scottish novelists Robert Louis Stevenson and J. M. Barrie.
The book was released in two volumes. The first mostly deals with early 18th-century pirates, while Volume II records the exploits of their predecessors a few decades earlier. In the first volume, the author sticks fairly close to the available sources, though the author embellishes the stories somewhat. The author stretches the truth farther in the second volume and includes the biographies of three subjects who may be entirely fictional. The book has been hugely influential in shaping popular notions of piracy.
The pirates profiled in Volume I are:
- Anne Bonny
- Bartholomew Roberts
- Blackbeard
- John Rackham
- Charles Vane
- Edward England
- Edward Lowe
- Francis Spriggs
- George Lowther
- Henry Every
- Howell Davis
- Israel Hands
- James Martel
- John Evans
- John Gow
- Jolly Roger
- Mary Read
- Richard Worley
- Philip Roche
- Stede Bonnet
- Thomas Anstis
Volume II features:
- Christopher Condent
- John Bowen
- John Halsey
- Nathaniel North
- Samuel Bellamy
- Samuel Burgess
- Thomas Howard
- Thomas Tew
- William Fly
- William Kidd
- David Williams
as well as biographies of the probably fictional captains James Misson, William Lewis, and John Cornelius.