Customer Reviews

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

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This Cordingly editor messed up a real classic. If you want to read something that is very different from what the original book was, then read this one. It is sad to see pieces of the classics reprinted as the editor thinks fit according to his personal taste, inserting the pirates of the 1724 edition, taking some of the 1726 edition, mixing them in a blender, and offering the results for sale only to make some money. The illustrations are also misleading, adding them as if they were part of the original book, and including several of the 1900's. If you are interested in reading the real thing, refer to a first leaguer such as Manuel Schonhorn, who edited the 1726 edition of Johnson's. It was published by Dover Publications, first printed in 1972, and again in 1999. If you don't want to buy things that don't work, nor be misleaded, then save yourself some dollars in poor books and spend them wisely. P.D. Now that I have both books, I will get rid of Cordingly's version, storing it away in the athic.

This is yet another of the knock-offs of Captain Charles Johnson's General History of Pirates. It includes narratives of all the old favorites: Blackbeard, Kidd, Roberts, Bonny and others. As usual, Johnson's prose is preserved and some of the original illustrations grace the pages. The editor/publisher has includes a glossary, bibliography and notes to the original text.

However, the down side of this particular volume is that it includes only a subset of Johnson's original writings. And, there is no added index with which to quickly reference particular names and such. While I don't quite agree that the editor has ruined the original, I do find that this version falls short of its potential. P-)

1695-1725 is called the Golden Age of Piracy, a time when the black flag of the skull and crossbones provoked terror like nothing else. As European ships fattened with goods and gold left the New World for the Old, pirates were as plentiful as sharks. Courageous, clever, defiant--and drunk--these thieves knew no boundaries as they plied the waters with an unquenchable thirst for mayhem. They burned ships for sport, they murdered, they stole, they even bribed colonial governors to look the other way. One gang actually drew up a formal document declaring war on the entire world.

And many of them swung from the yardarm as they were methodically brought to justice.

The most intriguing aspect of these stories is the portrayal of piratical society. They democratically elected their ship's captain. They debated and voted on their next destination. They followed orders unquestionably. They admired courage under fire, and admired an intelligent mind put to foul deeds. They trusted one another--to a point. As two or three ships sailed together, many a time one of them would weigh anchor in the dead of night and sail off with the booty, leaving their cohorts to cry in their rum--or pursue them and viciously kill `em all for daring to steal from fellow thieves. A perverse maritime code of respect and deceit evolved amongst these men, much like within today's penitentiaries.

Personally, my biggest surprise was the ease with which pirates recruited more pirates. A ship would be overtaken and plundered, and the pirate captain would shout, "Would anyone like to join us?!" and formerly law-abiding seamen would clamber over the rails to join the cutthroats. The free-wheeling life of adventure, ill-gotten wealth, and promiscuity was irresistible.

HOWEVER, these stories were written in the 1720s, and the syntax is rather bulky, which can dull the reader's attention. Worse, many of the stories sound alike: different names and places, but the same ol' plunder-burn-murder, then rest up on some secluded island, and then plunder-burn-murder some more.

So while these adventures can be rousing, sometimes surprising, and even humorous, the general monotony of the book can be very trying. Nonetheless, this book is widely considered a scholastic cornerstone for the student of piracy. So read this book--or walk the plank!

Originally published in 1724, Captain Charles Johnson's "A History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates" is a vivid and graphic account of the exploids of a dozen English and Welsh pirates.

Captain Johnson, who was once thought to be Daniel Defoe, dramatically relates the fights, rapes, and murders of these sea-going criminals.

Surprisingly, two of the 12 pirates were women--Anne Bonny and Mary Reed. The latter was once battling other pirates who were boarding her ship. Reed "called to those under deck to come up and fight like men, and finding that they did not stir, fired her arms down the hole amongst them, killing one and wounding others."

Maritime historians will enjoy this book.

I read, write, and study PIRATES! As with most history, one often does not know what is an actual fact or one person's account of an historical event. This book was written in 1724 towards the end of the "Golden Age of Piracy" that included pirates in the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, and Red Sea. This book is Capt. Charles Johnson's account of famous and infamous pirates most people know (Ed Teach--Blackbeard, William Kidd, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read)and many that most people have not heard of (Worley, Anstis, Vane, Lowther, Lowe, etc.). The accounts sound plausible, but it is unknown where the author found him information in the 1700's. I would guess it came orally as well as from newspaper clippings. The book may be difficult for many to read, because it is written in long rambly sentences which was the style then. I would recommend this book to history buffs. For your children I would recommend a delightful novel that combines slave children and pirates: The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo that is about Blackbeard's time spent terrorizing Charleston, SC. (Don't worry mom and dad, no one was killed, tortured, or mutilated. The worse thing that happened to Charlestonians was that they were scared they would be killed, tortured, or mutilated by the piraty men!)

Officially, this book is taken for the work of Captain Charles Johnson. It is a compilation of narratives about various individual pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy, names like Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts (the dread pirate Roberts, from Princess Bride fame), Anne Bonny et al.

The conclusion that Defoe and Johnson were one and the same has come under fire these last few years and is not the accepted fact it once was. This text includes portions of the original volumes by Johnson, but not the whole, although it can be argued that it includes the stories that most readers would want. There is also some question about the validity of the stories, but we may never know whether they are true or fiction. P-)

This book is a must-read for any pirate fan out there. Most of the stories in the book are completely true, and from a source closer to the scene than any modern book. I don't know why anyone would seriously critique this book, for it is what it is - a piece of history and a great read.

If you are a fan of Defoe and want to read about pirates in their heyday then this is the book you need. It was published under the name of Captain Charles Johnson, presumably to protect its author from the retaliation of ones such as Captain Avery - then in England - whose case the book deals with first. Avery had had a play written about or by him called The Successful Pirate, and a book called The King of the Pirates, and this A General History of the Pyrates is a scathing attack against their pretentions. Because of his history as a pirate Avery would not have been able to visit the naval records office to check up on his adversary, hence the security and reason presumably for the name. Subsequent research in the naval records have shown that no such fish as Captain Charles Johnson had existed. His name is fictional.

A possible explanation for why this book was published under that name is that at the time there was a hack playwright named Charles Johnson who is suspected of having written Avery's play and possibly also his book The King of The Pirates. If so, the name Captain Charles Johnson here would have been to mock this author and subvert any such pretence.

The American Defoe scholar John Robert Moore identified A General History of the Pyrates as being Defoe's and it certainly adds to his tally of great works.

In 1988 a couple of so-called scholars dismissed Moore's attribution on the grounds that the style was not the same as in The Pirate Gow or The King Of Pirates, both of which have been attributed to Defoe. However neither of these books are alike in style (The Pirate Gow is at least good journalism) and certainly the King of Pirates doesn't resemble Defoe's style or his character, while this one does. Moore was a fan and an expert and he has to be right.

I like this edition, the print being black and comfortably sized and attractive.

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates is a great book with lots of historical data and lots of tales. A must for all pirate buff's!

I bought this book for myself having stumbled across it at the bookstore. Started reading it and loved it. I have bought two more, one for a friend who was turning 40, (a pirate looks at 40), and one for my Dad, (who at one time was a pirate looks at 40). I recommend the book!