The Lure of Piracy - Realty vs. Romanticism, Part 1

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Sep 1, 2001

The transformation of pirates from common thieves to roguish heroes began with writers. Early pirate stories, which did not glamorize pirates, depicted gruesome incidents of pirate cruelty. Torture, murder, battles at sea, and marooned pirates fascinated readers. In 1678, a Dutch publisher released a book filled with such descriptions. Written by Alexandre Exquemelin (also known as John Esquemeling), The Buccaneers of America was an eyewitness account whose vivid details continue to curl the most steadfast toes. A Frenchman by birth, Exquemelin joined the pirates after acquiring some training with a doctor on the Isle of Tortuga in the 1660s. After five years, he quit and returned to Europe.

Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island also painted a picture of pirates who all should fear. Exciting and colorful, this book nevertheless portrayed pirates as villains. The name Long John Silver conjured up an immediate image of a ruthless peg-leg pirate to whom one should give a wide berth. It was within the book's pages that fictional pirates became associated with certain images: treasure maps, tropical islands, pirates with wooden legs, parrots, and black schooners. This adventure also provided future readers and writers with pirate symbols that were in reality myths. Few pirates held their treasure long enough to bury it, preferring instead to spend their ill-gotten gains on drink, women, and games. Nor did pirates have maps where X marked the spot where they buried such treasure. No evidence exists that pirates ever walked the plank.

A General History of the Robbers and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates related the exploits of many well-known pirates. It was published in 1724, not long after the demise and/or capture of Blackbeard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, and Bartholomew Roberts. Although the identity of its author, Captain Johnson, remains a mystery, this book inspired later stories of pirates. Although first released in 1798, Blackbeard the Pirate remained popular into Victorian times.

Credit for starting the romantic myth of piracy rests with George Gordon, Lord Byron, and his poem, The Corsair. On the first day of publication in 1814, it sold 10,000 copies. Conrad, leader of pirates based in the Mediterranean, practiced all the vices of a typical pirate while possessing the traits of noble outlaws akin to Robin Hood. Over the years Byron's poem inspired operas, paintings, musical scores, and ballets that featured pirates. When Charles Elms' The Pirates' Own Book was released in 1837, it quickly became a bestseller. It combined myths with facts about pirates from ancient to modern times throughout the world. The author relied on previously published documents to make it "the classic of classics" (as Elms himself wrote) among books dealing with pirates. A year earlier, Captain Marryat published The Pirate in which the pirate ship was painted black. This schooner may have served as the model for Stevenson's Hispaniola in Treasure Island (1833) and Arthur Ransome's Viper in Peter Duck (1932).