Major Stede Bonnet’s voracious reading habits and fondness for books is well-known (Bonnet is the only pirate known to have a full library built into his stateroom on the Revenge), and may be much more than simple pirate trivia.
That’s right, Bonnet’s piratical career may have been inspired by books like the voyage narratives of the times. These narratives, combined with tales of piracy shared across Barbados by word of mouth and contained in the newspapers of circulation likely reminded Bonnet of his relatively sheltered lifestyle on the 166 square miles of Barbados.
Romantic tales of treasure, adventure and the endless immensity of the sea fed Bonnet’s longing to travel the world and seek out adventure, pushing back against his aristocratic status (and marriage).
Books that may have inspired Bonnet and inflamed his wanderlust include:
- A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World, Perform’d in the Years 1708, 1709, 1710 and 1711, written by Captain Edward Cooke in 1712 (and fragments of which were discovered in the shipwreck of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge);
- A Cruising Voyage Round the World, written by Woodes Rogers (who would later become the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas and a famed pirate hunter);
- Lionel Wafer’s A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America;
- William Dampier’s A New Voyage Round the World, published in 1697, and his second book, A Voyage to New Holland;
- The Successful Pyrate, a play by Charles Johnson (unrelated to Captain Charles Johnson author of A General History of the Pyrates) based on the life of the “king of the pirates,” Henry Avery, published in 1713; and,
- The Buccaneers of America by Alexander Exquemelin, translated and published in English in 1684.
What other books might Bonnet have read? Leave a comment or send me a note on Twitter @StedesRevenge.
(N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources), Paper sludge and scraps [of A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World, Perform’d in the Years 1708, 1709, 1710 and 1711, written by Captain Edward Cooke in 1712, the fragments of which were discovered in the shipwreck of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. Could this book have come from Bonnet’s library?].
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