Piracy Mythmaking in the Eighteenth Century

Criminality, Human Nature, and Civil Government

Richard Frohock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040837665
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

Piracy Mythmaking in the Eighteenth Century: Criminality, Human Nature, and Civil Government focuses on the figure of the pirate as a literary phenomenon in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Taking a cultural studies approach, it complements historical studies of piracy by examining the pirate as a powerful and important literary and cultural trope. Piracy Mythmaking offers new insights into piracy literature by analyzing ways in which the pirate served as a contested figure of conversation in relation to imperialist violence, gender, race, and topical philosophical matters related to human nature and the formation and governance of civil societies. Through analysis of a multitude of pirate narratives in diverse genres, Piracy Mythmaking emphasizes and illustrates the wide range of viewpoints found in pirate literature, from militant nationalism to satirical critique of domestic politics and British imperialism, particularly in the Americas.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Introduction A Golden Age of Pirate Literature: Criminality, Human Nature, and Civil Government
• 1 From Hawkins to Jenkins: Interpreting Violence in English Piracy Narratives
• 2 Piracy and Civil Government
• 3 Captive Women Among Pirates
• 4 Pirate Alliances with Non-Europeans
• 5 The Literary Evolution of the Notorious Pirate Henry Avery
• Coda Defoe’s Captain Singleton (1720): Pirate Identity in Flux
• Index