THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF PIRATES

Awash with skulduggery, malice, terror and opportunism, here are 28first-hand memoirs and contemporary reports of the most famous pirates tosail the seven seas, including Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, 'Calico Jack'Rackham, Alexander Exquemelin, Frances Drake, Anne Bonney, Jean Lafitteand the Joassamee Pirates. The accounts range from the Golden Age ofpiracy, beginning in the mid 16th century with the birth of the'buccaneers' in the Caribbean, to more recent times - such as: Francis'Scourge of Spain' Drake's audacious night treasure raid on Nombre deDios; the capture of Panama by Henry Morgan, greatest and cruellest of the'Brethren of the Coast'; Alexander Exquemelin's fly-on-the-wall account ofthe 'wicked order of pirates, or robbers of the sea'; the apostasy of JohnWard and Simon Danser - Christians who served as privateers for the Muslimstates of the North African coast; Louis 'Half-Arse' Le Golif, whosebuttock was shot away by cannon; Journal of William Dampier , foundstashed in a hollow bamboo tube, having fled life as a Somerset farmer topiracy on the Pacific; Henry Avery's seizure of the Moghul of India'sstaggering treasure ship Gang-I-sawai. Plus, this work includes thePirate's Code of Honour (article 4: lights out at eight o'clock, 'if afterthat hour any still remained inclined to drinking, to do it on opendeck'...); a listing of pirate songs; pirate flags; and a full piratechronology - all in all, no quarter is spared in this Mammoth-sizedcollection.