HOWARD PYLE'S BOOK OF PIRATES; Fiction, Fact and Fancy concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main, compiled by Merle Johnson

New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1921. First Edition. Profusely illustrated throughout by Howard Pyle. Folio, publisher's original quarter black cloth and beige boards, the spine gilt-lettered,, the upper cover lettered in black and with the famous pictorial paste-down of the pirate in colours. xviii, 247 pp. A handsome copy, the gilt work on the spine panel still bright, the covers, hinges and text-block all in good order, the plates bright and clean, some minor bumping at the tips. FIRST EDITION AND A HANDSOME AND CLEAN COPY OF THIS WONDERFUL BOOK, one of Pyle's best and most popular works.
"Why is it that the pirate has, and always has had, a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? Is there, deep under the accumulated debris of culture, a hidden groundwork of the old-time savage? Is there even in these well-regulated times an unsubdued nature in the respectable mental household of every one of us that still kicks against the pricks of law and order? To make my meaning more clear, would not every boy, for instance—that is, every boy of any account—rather be a pirate captain than a Member of Parliament?" (- from the Introduction).