library of female pirates 9

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angus konstam, anne bonny, library of female pirates, mary read, piracy the complete history, pirates

In today’s installment of The Library of Female Pirates, we take a look at a few pages from Angus Konstam’s Piracy: The Complete History. Though we return once again to the familiar subject of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, this book is notable for questioning the romantic yet brutal tale of these two female pirates. Unlike some other texts in our series, Konstam finds fault with the “far-fetched” and “sensationalist” story passed down to us courtesy of Daniel Defoe’s General History of the Pyrates.

Konstam points out that a pirate’s occupation was generally short-lived, due not only to its rough nature but to its being a temporary economic solution for most sailors involved. Thus, Konstam doubts Mary Read would have spent nearly 23 years at sea. He also points out we have little record, other than their trial documents, to verify anything Defoe has told us. Konstam makes these criticisms in pages 185-188, reproduced below.

Piracy: The Complete History begins in the 14th century BC, with a band of sea raiders who troubled the ancient Egyptians, and continues up to the modern time of 2008, when it was published. It’s an enjoyable read, and its modern language makes it more accessible than some of the older texts covered in this series.

library of female pirates 8

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anne bonny, captain johnson, charles johnson, daniel defoe, general history of the pyrates, library of female pirates, mary read, pirates

“A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates and Also Their Policies, Discipline, and Government.” Nearly every book you find on pirates of antiquity will refer to the book featured in today’s installment of The Library of Female Pirates. David Cordingly, in Under the Black Flag, calls it Captain Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates, and Cordingly has provided an Introduction to at least one edition of the book under that name.

However, you will also find the book listed under author Daniel Defoe. Why? Editor Manuel Schonhorn explains in the Introduction to the edition pictured below. Based on the work of Professor John Robert Moore in 1932, academics have increasingly come to believe that “Captain Charles Johnson” was merely one of many pseudonyms for Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. Schonhorn elaborates on Defoe’s life, his interest in maritime commerce and piracy, and the nature of his sources and travels.

Schonhorn’s edition fills more than 700 pages and incorporates text from four editions of the first volume of A General History and the second volume as well. His supplementary material works to clarify Defoe’s factual claims, while the organization of the text for clarity cohesively orders material which was apparently scattered throughout the editions published in Defoe’s era. Defoe himself made corrections and changes between editions, and Schonhorn must have put in tremendous time and effort to make a single coherent text.

Compared to other texts in our Library of Female Pirates, this one has the most antiquated language. Schonhorn has preserved many old spellings (such as “authentick” instead of “authentic”) and the apparently common “anything goes” Approach to Capitalization of those bygone Days. This makes the book at once more challenging to the reader and more endearing, as if one is truly studying an historic document.

Pages 153 through 165 cover Mary Read and Anne Bonny. We would love to scan those pages for you, but the book is incredibly thick. Scanning it without destroying it is nigh impossible. However, most of the information has been recounted in the other, more modern books we have covered in this series. A General History of the Pyrates has served as the primary source, or at least the starting point, for all modern research on Read and Bonny, from the romantic retelling by Charles Ellms to Gosse’s account to Cordingly’s scholarly work.

Yet some details of their lives only appear in Defoe’s work, as far as we can tell. For example, Defoe spends nearly four pages recounting a tale of three stolen spoons. The drama between a wife, her husband, and her maid resulting from these stolen spoons leads directly to the circumstances of Anne Bonny’s early childhood. Mary Read’s various military services and her marriage resulting from one of those services also earn a bit more detail in Defoe’s history than in subsequent works. A combination of Defoe’s General History and Cordingly’s research in Under the Black Flag may well constitute the sum of all we shall ever know about these two famous female pirates.

library of female pirates 7

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alwilda, anne bonny, ching shih, david cordingly, grace omalley, library of female pirates, mary read, pirates, shih cheng, shih ching, under the black flag

Our seventh installment of The Library of Female Pirates concludes this week of piracy with the one book we would most highly recommend to anyone interested in female pirates or pirates in general: Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. Cordingly devotes his fourth chapter to “Women Pirates and Pirates’ Women”. We will not present the complete chapter here because, unlike some of the authors of our older texts, Cordingly is still alive and deserves your support in purchasing this incredible work.

Cordingly’s chapter on female pirates incorporates all of the historical sources our series has shared with you so far, and goes even further. For example, he expands the body of knowledge on Mary Read and Anne Bonny by researching historical documents. This provides the reader with, among other things, this notice of their trial date, complete with antiquated English spellings.

Cordingly also delves into the daily particulars of life which must have confronted females aboard the pirate ships, such as the problem of keeping their gender a secret when the only toilet aboard the ship was a large board, extending off the ship in plain view, with holes cut in it. Cordingly also notes the legendary female pirates were not the only women aboard these ships, and he reveals the conditions of wives and female captives. Finally, he puts the lives of female pirates into perspective by examining the lives of female sailors in general, favorably comparing their capabilities at sea with their male counterparts.

Ching Shih (which Cordingly spells Cheng) also appears in Under the Black Flag, receiving a far more historically knowledgeable treatment than Borges gave her in his fanciful Universal History of Iniquity. Cordingly mentions Alwilda here, essentially recounting Ellms’ brief version. However, Cordingly delves into the life of Grace O’Malley, a female pirate not covered in other texts in our series. Because she has not been given her due yet in this series, we present those pages here in their entirety.

library of female pirates 6

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anne bonny, charles ellms, library of female pirates, mary read, pirates, pirates own book

Our sixth installment of The Library of Female Pirates returns to the pages of the 1996 hardcover edition of The Pirates by Charles Ellms. Here we receive a more complete account of the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, apparently the account drawn on by Philip Gosse in The History of Piracy.

Though not as historically complete as the next book in our series, this may be our favorite telling of their tale. Ellms’ old-fashioned language gives us a sense of these long-gone days and creates an atmosphere of both shock and sympathy for these hard-fighting women who, if truth be told, appear no more or less cruel than their male counterparts. Ellms portrays them as capable of both passion and savagery, sailors one would rather fight beside than fight against. Anne receives a shorter chapter, but much of her life overlaps with Read’s chapter, where their meeting is revealed.

library of female pirates 4

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anne bonny, history of piracy, library of female pirates, mary read, philip gosse, pirates

Our fourth installment of The Library of Female Pirates returns to the pages of The History of Piracy by Philip Gosse for a more detailed account of Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Gosse ends this section with a brief verse he credits to the anonymous author of The Pirates’ Own Book. We now know the author was Charles Ellms, and the book was published anonymously in numerous editions as Ellms compiled material. We will explore the pages of a 1996 edition later in this series. Strangely enough, this fragment of verse did not make it into that edition, giving Gosse’s 1932 account a bit of uniqueness.

library of female pirates 1

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anne bonny, blackbeard and other notorious pirates, coloring book, library of female pirates, mary read, peter f copeland, pirates

Our first installment of The Library of Female Pirates showcases seven pages from a pirate coloring book called Blackbeard and Other Notorious Pirates by Peter F. Copeland. Copeland gives us the highlights from the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, perhaps the best-known female pirates in the Western world.

Though not as in-depth as other texts we will explore in this series, Copeland’s renderings of weapons, ships, and clothing do much to make the world of Bonny & Read come to life in our imaginations. His portrait of Mary Read, standing with her pistol before a cloud-covered mast bearing the jolly roger, truly captures the romantic vision time has bestowed on these reportedly tough and brutal women of the sea.