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I'm re-reading A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson.  I've read it many times, but wanted to come back to it now because it's a plot device in my WIP [working title] The Hot Pirate's Secret Baby.  In the WIP, the pirate captain hero reads aloud to his daughter from Johnson's history as a bedtime story, doing some judicious editing on the fly.  The governess heroine is less than pleased with his choice of literature, but little Mathilde (who's taken on the pirate name of "Marauding Mattie") loves hearing about Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Blackbeard and the rest.

Johnson's book is the ur-book of pirate stories in the West, and much of our knowledge and images of pirates comes from him.  The book is entertaining and lively.  It doesn't hurt that "Captain Johnson" may in fact be Daniel Defoe, a man who knew how to write a rousing story!  It still reads well after 300 years.

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