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THE EARLY HISTORY OF PIRATE FICTION

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe was an English novelist, noted for being one of the earliest people to popularise the novel in Britain. He is best known for writing the story Robinson Crusoe which included arguably the first fictional mention of pirates.

Born Daniel Foe, the son of a successful butcher in London in 1660, he later changed his name to Defoe, in an attempt to sound more aristocratic. During his early life, he survived two of the most devastating events in English history: the 1665 Great Plague of London which killed 70,000 people, and the following year, the Great Fire of London which left only Defoe’s and two other houses standing in his neighbourhood.

Defoe later became a general merchant. Travelling widely he traded in hosiery, woollen goods, and wine but unfortunately, was rarely out of debt. He eventually went bankrupt and decided to leave the business altogether.

Having a lifelong interest in politics, Defoe became a journalist and activist, publishing literary and political pamphlets. Many of Defoe’s works concerning King William III, also known as ‘William Henry of Orange’ were often controversial and political opponents of Defoe’s repeatedly had him imprisoned for his writing.

Defoe took a new literary path around the age of 59, when he published his first fictional novel, Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe

The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was based on several short stories that Defoe had composed over a period of some years.

The novel is assumed to be based in part on the true story of a Scottish sailor and castaway, Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded in the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile, on an island called ‘Isla Más a Tierra’ (re-named Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966). Selkirk survived his ordeal and his story was told in 1713 in the magazine The Englishman, six years before Defoe’s novel was published.

Written in the first person, the first edition of Defoe’s book credited Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book was a travelogue of true incidents.

In the Robinson Crusoe novel, during one of his journeys, the ship upon which Crusoe is sailing falls victim to Salé Rovers, Turkish Barbary pirates who operated from North Africa and terrorised the western Mediterranean.

Crusoe is enslaved for two years before managing to escape by overpowering his guard during a fishing trip. This episode is more than likely the first fictional account of piracy in the history of literature.

When it was published, Robinson Crusoe captivated readers unlike anything in its time, and is now considered by many to be the first true English novel. The first printing, of a thousand copies, quickly went to a second, third and fourth within a year, and was translated into French, Dutch, German, Spanish and Russian, making Crusoe one of the world’s most recognised fictional characters.

By the end of the 19th century, no book in the history of Western literature had more editions and spin-offs than Robinson Crusoe, with more than 700 alternative versions. A term was even coined to describe similar stories in the genre: Robinsonade.

The King of Pirates and Captain Singleton

Daniel Defoe wrote about piracy again in 1719 as he was riding the wave of popularity generated by Robinson Crusoe.

He published a lesser known short story called The King of Pirates, a compelling and enjoyable ‘first-hand’ account of pirate life on the high-seas. Although a fictional piece, the featured character was real-life pirate Captain Henry Every, who operated in the late 17th century.

Written in response to a letter accusing him of the worst possible deeds, Captain Every pens a reply seeking to exonerate himself from all such charges. He sees fit to provide a full account of life as captain of a pirate ship and far from being the archetypal, murderous villain, his letters reveal him to be simply a lovable rogue.

Defoe followed this in 1720 with The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton. As with The King of Pirates, the story is believed to have been inspired by the exploits of Captain Every.

As with his previous works, Captain Singleton is also written in a first person narrative, in the style of a journal, as the character tells the tale of two major adventures. The story describes

the life of the Englishman, Bob Singleton, stolen from a well-to-do family as a child and raised by gypsies, before making his way to life on the sea.

The first half of the novel includes a remarkable overland trek across Africa after the characters are stranded in Madagascar following a failed mutiny, while the second half is almost entirely set at sea, involving Singleton as a pirate embroiled in adventures around the East African coast and the East Indies.

Although piracy is central to the story, this is not so much a story about pirates, but more a vehicle used to tell Singleton’s journey from merchant, to criminal, before leading ultimately to his redemption.

All of Daniel Defoe’s novels were written and published in the last ten years of his life and he died in 1731 aged 71. Before his time, fiction was primarily written in verse or as plays, but Defoe helped develop a new form of storytelling – one which remains with us today – and his recurring nautical themes brought pirates to to the world for the first time.

Poster for the Life Adventures and Pyracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

A General History of Pyrates

In 1724 a book was published which documented for the first time the biographies of real-life pirates of the day. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates was influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates that found their way into future works of fiction.

Its author uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, generally considered to be a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe, who wrote under many different names and who had a prior interest and knowledge of piracy.

Having first appeared in a bookshop in London, it sold so well that by 1726 an enlarged fourth edition pandered to the British public’s taste for the exotic and revelling in graphic stories set on the high seas. The prime source for the biographies of many well-known pirates, the book gives an almost mythical status to its colourful characters such as the infamous English pirates Blackbeard and Calico Jack, though it is likely that the author used considerable licence in his accounts of featured pirate conversations.

It has been said that Captain Johnson helped create the modern conception of pirates.

Novelists Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island) and J. M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan featuring Captain Hook) both identified it as one of their major influences, and Stevenson even borrowed one character’s name (Israel Hands) from a list of Blackbeard’s crew that appeared in his book.

A General History of Pyrates introduced many features which later became common in pirate literature, such as pirates with missing legs or eyes, the notion of pirates burying treasure, and the name of the pirate flag, as he cites two pirates as having named their flag ‘Jolly Roger’.

The book was released in two volumes. The first mostly deals with early 18th-century pirates, and the author sticks fairly close to the available sources (though he embellishes the stories somewhat), while volume II records the exploits of their predecessors a few decades earlier. Both books stretch the truth and include the biographies of three pirates who may be entirely fictional.

The pirates featured in A General History of Pyrates:

Anne Bonny
Bartholomew Roberts
Blackbeard
Calico Jack
Rackham Charles
Vane Edward England
Edward Lowe
Francis Spriggs
George Lowther
Henry Every

Howell Davis
Israel Hands
James Martel
John Evans
John Gow
Mary Read
Richard Worley
Stede Bonnet
Thomas Anstis

Christopher Condent
John Bowen
Nathaniel North
Samuel Bellamy
Samuel Burgess
Thomas Howard
Thomas Tew
William Fly
William Kidd

Its author uses the name Captain Charles Johnson, generally considered to be a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe, who wrote under many different names and who had a prior interest and knowledge of piracy.

It has been said that Captain Johnson helped create the modern conception of pirates. Novelists Robert Louis Stevenson (author of Treasure Island) and J. M. Barrie

(author of Peter Pan featuring Captain Hook) both identified it as one of their major influences, and Stevenson even borrowed one character’s name (Israel Hands) from a list of Blackbeard’s crew that appeared in his book.

The pirates featured in A General History of Pyrates:

Anne Bonny
Bartholomew
Roberts Blackbeard
Calico Jack
Rackham Charles
Vane Edward England
Edward Lowe
Francis Spriggs
George Lowther
Henry Every

The Buccaneers of America

Along with A General History of Pyrates, the only other historical source written during the time of the Golden Age of Pirates, is The Buccaneers of America by French writer Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin.

First published in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers in 1678, the book would go on to be translated into German, Spanish, English, and French and is one of the most important sourcebooks of 17th century piracy.

Exquemelin was employed by the ‘French West India Company’ in the Caribbean in 1666, before enlisting with buccaneers three years later – in particular, the crew of Welsh privateer Henry Morgan, probably as a barber and surgeon. In 1674, tiring of the pirate life, he was wealthy enough to afford passage aboard a Dutch ship to Amsterdam, Holland where he settled and qualified professionally as a surgeon.

His book, based on his experiences in the Caribbean, covered among other things, the lives, behaviour and raids of pirates, and the journey of Henry Morgan and his attack on Panama City.

In it, he described the pirates as cunning and greedy adventurers, many of them with a tendency to commit atrocities without reason.

The book was an instant bestseller, as people across Europe were enthralled by the stories of adventurous pirate life. It is said that no other 17th century book has been so referenced and imitated, as it inspired so much of the pirate fiction which followed, including that of Daniel Defoe.

Exquemelin returned to the Caribbean in 1697, where his name appears listed as a surgeon on board a ship involved in an attack on the city of Cartagena, Colombia. After a short time back in Holland, he travelled again to the Caribbean in 1699, which is the last time he was heard of.

The Buccaneers of America, original Dutch cover, 1678

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