The Mammoth Book of Pirates

New, very minor wear on front cover bottom corner from storage, no markings or wear on back cover or any inner pages. "Awash with skullduggery, malice, terror, and opportunism, here are 28 first-hand memoirs and contemporary reports of the most famous pirates to sail the seven seas, including Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, 'Calico Jack' Rackham, Anne Bonney, and Jean Lafitte. These range from the Golden Age of piracy, beginning in the mid 16th century with the birth of the 'buccaneers' in the Caribbean, to more recent times. Some of the accounts covered are Francis 'Scourge of Spain' Drake's audacious night treasure raid on Nombre de Dios, the capture of Panama by Henry Morgan, cruelest of the 'Brethren of the Coast', Alexander Exquemelin's fly-on-the-wall telling of the 'wicked order of pirates or robbers of the sea,' and the journal of William Dampier which was found stashed in a hollow bamboo tube, after he fled life as a Somerset farmer. In addition, this book offers the Pirate's Code of Honour (article 4: lights out at eight o'clock, 'if after that hour any still remained inclined to drinking, to do it on open deck'), a listing of pirate songs, and a full pirate chronology." Jon E. Lewis is a historian and writer, whose books on history and military history are sold worldwide. He is also editor of many The Mammoth Book of anthologies, including the bestselling On the Edge and Endurance and Adventure. He holds graduate and postgraduate degrees in history. His work has appeared in New Statesman, the Independent, Time Out and the Guardian. He lives in Herefordshire with his partner and children.