Pirates!: Brigands, Buccaneers, And Privateers In Fact, Fiction, And Legend

In more than a thousand entries this encyclopedia—impeccably researched, internationally focused, and extensively cross-referenced—reveals the actual lives and exploits of pirates and the diverse worlds from which they sprang, from the Etruscan and Phoenician marauders off the coast of ancient Greece to the Chinese and Malay pirates of the 1870s. Pirates! encompasses: historical pirates like Madame Cheng I Sao, Captain William Kidd, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Edward "Blackbeard" Teach; fictional buccaneers like Anne Bonny, Captain Blood, and Long John Silver; every important and noteworthy novel, play, poem, ballad, opera, and movie portraying pirates; pirate slang, havens, types of ships, weapons, symbols, practices, and pleasures; a listing of the richest booty ever captured; over a hundred illustrations (with more than a dozen paintings by Howard Pyle); and a comprehensive bibliography.