Pirate Fever: The Buccaneer’s Guide to Tales, Trails and Treasure in North America is a book for the person who already owns an eyepatch. Written by Eleyne Austen Sharp, a Rhode Island writer and publisher who signs herself “Lady E,” it packs a remarkable amount of pirate material into about 130 pages.
Four parts, one voice
The book is divided into four sections. The first offers short biographies of famous pirates, from Blackbeard, William Kidd and Henry Morgan to Anne Bonny, Mary Read and the Chinese pirate commander Cheng I Sao. The second covers pirates in fiction and film, from Errol Flynn to Johnny Depp, along with treasure hunting and the founders of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. The third is a party guide: how to dress and talk like a pirate, a glossary, recipes, drinking songs and, as promised, some very bad jokes. The fourth is a travel guide to pirate attractions, festivals and lost-treasure legends along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts and the Great Lakes.
The whole thing is written in an exaggerated pirate dialect. It is charming for a while, and the glossary helps, but readers who just want the facts may find it tiring by the end.
What holds it together
The book jumps around, more scrapbook than history. What unifies it is enthusiasm. Sharp clearly loves the subject, and the regional guide, which covers coastlines from New England to the Pacific, is genuinely useful for families planning a trip. The book is illustrated with classic pirate images by Howard Pyle, the illustrator who did more than anyone to create the popular image of pirates in floppy boots and sashes.
Verdict
Not a scholarly history; for that, look to David Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag. But as a cheerful handbook for pirate fans and a guide to where to find pirate history on vacation, it is good fun.
Sources: Howard Pyle, Wikipedia; International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Wikipedia; Ching Shih (Cheng I Sao), Wikipedia.
