The Penguin Book of Pirates

Real-life accounts of the world’s most notorious pirates—both men and women, from the sixteenth century through the Golden Age of Piracy to the late nineteenth century—compiled by the New York Times bestselling author of A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself.

A Penguin Classic

Behind the eye patches and the peg legs and the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger flag are deeper truths about pirates that are just as fascinating. The no-man’s-land of piracy is rife with paradox and plot twists, like how astoundingly egalitarian multi-ethnic and multilingual crews became enmeshed in historical horrors like the slave trade, how an Englishman once converted to Islam before terrorizing the North African coast, and how women disguised themselves as men to raid the Caribbean.

Spanning three centuries and eight thousand nautical miles, and compiled by a direct descendant of a sailor who waged war with pirates in the early nineteenth century, The Penguin Book of Pirates features trial transcripts, journalism, ship logs, and more, capturing the grit and patois of real maritime marauders like the infamous Blackbeard; the pirates who inspired Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean , Stede Bonnet in HBO Max’s Our Flag Means Death , and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride ; and lesser-known but no less formidable women pirates. By turns brutal, harrowing, and inspiring, these accounts of the “radically free” sailors who were citizens more of the oceangoing world than of any nation remind us of the glories and dangers of the open seas and the seductive appeal of communities forged in resistance.