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6 - The Pirates Own Book

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

Paul A. Gilje
Affiliation:
University of Oklahoma
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Summary

Scattered about the New Orleans courtroom were pistols, gunpowder, “a colossal bowie-knife,” and a dark blue flag with death's head and “marrowless crossbones.” Amid this pirate paraphernalia, and almost as damning as evidence, was a copy of the most popular compendium of stories of murder, mayhem, and robbery on the high seas in the antebellum era – The Pirates Own Book. How many pirates may have actually owned The Pirates Own Book we will never know. We do know that this oddly named tome entertained plenty of regular seamen and landsmen in the nineteenth century. As such, it can stand as a symbol for the kind of sea literature that was popular in the age of sail and serves as an entree into our examination of Jack Tar's reading. Sold for a dollar, The Pirates Own Book was initially published in 1837 and quickly went through five printings for a total of 6,000 copies in its first year. Over the next twenty-five years The Pirates Own Book appeared in at least eight other editions. It was one of several similar books, including Charles Johnson's a century old A General History of the Pirates, in circulation at the time. It also represented a revolution in printing that occurred between 1750 and 1850. Several editions of Johnson's book had appeared in the eighteenth century, but only the transformations in the book industry, with cheaper paper manufacturing, automating some aspects of printing and book production, and aggressive marketing, allowed works like The Pirates Own Book to reach larger audiences. Hand in hand with these developments was a growing interest in sensational works of all kinds, the development of the novel, the availability of other print material, and the proliferation of religious publications. The Pirates Own Book, much of which had been “pirated” from Johnson, became so popular because it combined stories of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sea rovers with tales about early nineteenth-century pirates. Relatively inexpensive, the book was richly illustrated with detailed images of walking the plank, drinking, ravaging, robbing, and murdering. It also depicted the execution and decapitation of pirates. The material package of this book, a product of changes in print production, carried powerful and contradictory messages to the reader.

Type
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To Swear like a Sailor
Maritime Culture in America, 1750–1850
, pp. 182 - 222
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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  • The Pirates Own Book
  • Paul A. Gilje, University of Oklahoma
  • Book: To Swear like a Sailor
  • Online publication: 05 February 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139049283.007
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  • The Pirates Own Book
  • Paul A. Gilje, University of Oklahoma
  • Book: To Swear like a Sailor
  • Online publication: 05 February 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139049283.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Pirates Own Book
  • Paul A. Gilje, University of Oklahoma
  • Book: To Swear like a Sailor
  • Online publication: 05 February 2016
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139049283.007
Available formats
×