The Captain and his Fellows: Reading Editions of A General History of the Pyrates,1724–1734

Abstract

A General History of the Pyrates purports to tell the true and entirely accurate stories of ‘the most notorious pirates’. It originates many of the images of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century piracy in circulation today and has been extensively mined as an archive for information about historical pirates. However, the General History is a complex literary fiction. This thesis meets the need for a robust understanding of the early life of this text. This involves examining both the text’s publishing history and the language, form, and content of editions published between 1724 and 1734 to interrogate the figure of the pirate generated by this influential text. This thesis establishes that there is no authoritative edition, and instead approaches the General History as a changeable tradition of narratives concerning pirates set in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. I compare across and within editions to argue that the crew and the captain jointly create the pirate. This thesis demonstrates that the pirate contributes to, but also exceeds, developing notions of the criminal. This produces a new reading of the pirate as a literary type.

Chapter one establishes a publishing history of the General History between 1724 and 1734. It highlights understudied formats to establish a comprehensive account of the text’s early life within its publishing contexts. This chapter underlines that no two editions are exactly the same in this ten-year period and sets the foundation for why these differences are significant. Chapter two initiates the analysis of the pirate. By placing editions of the text in conversation with antecedent outlaw and contemporaneous highwayman narratives, this chapter argues that pirates are fellows aboard a ship. These fellowships are challenged by treachery, but are sustained by oaths and notions of honour to develop pirate homosocial relations. Chapter three argues that the General History presents captaincy as a spectrum of qualities and behaviours. It contextualises notions of the hero and adventure to argue that the text creates captains imbued with the affective qualities of early modern heroes who centre ideas of acquisition and predation. This creates a new iteration of the literary adventurer, for whom venture is a key concern. These chapters collectively argue that the General History is a product of long established ideas of adventure and outlawry that speaks to the concerns of the emerging eighteenth century.

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