Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

Howard Pyle defined the visual language of piracy for generations of readers, and this collection gathers his most electrifying tales of the Spanish Main. Here are the bloodthirsty buccaneers and desperate marooners who haunted the dreams of every child who ever dreamed of adventure on the ocean wave. Pyle's prose crackles with the romance of the golden age of piracy: Blackbeard's terror, Henry Morgan's cunning, and the ghost of Captain Brand still haunting the waters where he met his violent end. These aren't history books; they're the raw material of imagination, written by a man who knew that pirates were never merely criminals but symbols of wild freedom and the thrill of living outside the law. The illustrations that accompany these tales are themselves legendary, the definitive images that created our cultural mythology of the pirate. This is the book that taught America to dream of skull and crossbones, of hidden treasure and the last dying speech of a condemned captain. Perfect for anyone who still believes the sea belongs to the brave.