PIRATE: The Buccaneer's Unofficial Manual

Turnbull has studied the archives and travelled to pirate locations around the world in researching this fictionalized account, written as a pirate's training manual for a young recruit, but solidly grounded in fact, based on the year 1793, a golden age for piracy. Here you will discover everything the aspiring pirate needs to know for a life of adventure, plunder and glory. Learn how to talk to impress your fellow shipmates, what scurvy is and how to avoid it, why that's almost certainly not a mermaid you're seeing, which flags to fly when you spot a ship on the horizon, where to drop anchor and sell you're ill-gotten booty, how to outsmart the bounty hunters and excisemen on your tail, and why burying your treasure might not be the most sturdy retirement plan. The hopeful initiate is educated on the history of this dishonourable tradition stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome; essentials of language and dress; notably dastardly pirate role models from around the world including Blackbeard, Captain Morgan and his band of privateers and Captain Kidd, but also some less well known, such as Eustace the Monk and Anne Bonny and Mary Read, St Elmo's Fire and much more. Did they really walk the plank (probably not); keep parrots; bury treasure and mark it with an X on the map? And you may be surprised to learn what their usual style of hat actually was. Illustrated throughout with contemporary artifacts, documents and prints, as well as modern reconstructions. 200 beautifully decorated pages.