Compiled by Merle Johnson

   FOREWORD

    PIRATES,
           Buccaneers,
         Marooners,
           those cruel
             but picturesque sea wolves
               who once infested
                   the Spanish Main,
         all live
               in present-day conceptions
             in great degree as
              drawn by the pen
                   and pencil of Howard Pyle.

    Pyle,
           artist-author,
         living in the latter half
               of the nineteenth century
             and the first decade
                   of the twentieth,
           had the fine faculty
               of transposing himself
             into any
              chosen period of history and
                  making its people flesh
                       and blood again
          --not just historical puppets.

    His characters
        were sketched with
               both words and picture;
        with both words and picture
             he ranks as a master,
           with a rich personality
              which makes his work individual
                   and attractive
                 in either medium.

    He was
           one of the founders
         of present-day American illustration,
           and his pupils
               and grand-pupils pervade
             that field to-day.

    While he bore
           no such important part
               in the world of letters,
           his stories
            are modern in treatment,
         and yet widely read.

    His range
          included historical treatises
              concerning his favorite Pirates
         (Quaker though he was);
            fiction,
               with the same Pirates
                   as principals;
            Americanized version
                   of Old World fairy tales;
            boy stories
                   of the Middle Ages,
               still best sellers
                   to growing lads;
            stories of the occult,
               such as In Tenebras
                   and To the Soil
                       of the Earth,
             which,
               if newly published,
             would be
                  hailed as contributions
                       to our latest cult.

    In all
           these fields Pyle's work
        may be equaled,
           surpassed,
         save in one.

    It is improbable
         that anyone else
            will ever
                  bring his combination of interest
                       and talent
                     to the depiction
                           of these old-time Pirates,
           any more than there
            could be a second Remington
                  to paint the
                      now extinct Indians
                           and gun-fighters
                               of the Great West.

    Important and interesting
           to the student of history,
         the adventure-lover,
         and the artist,
           as they are,
         these Pirate stories and pictures
              have been
                  scattered through
                       many magazines and books.

    Here,
           in this volume,
         they are
              gathered together
                   for the first time,
           perhaps not
              just as Mr. Pyle
            would have done,
         but with a completeness
               and appreciation
                   of the real value
                 of the material
              which the author's modesty
                might not have permitted.

    MERLE
        JOHNSON.

    PREFACE

    WHY
        is it
             that a little spice
                   of deviltry
                lends not an unpleasantly
                      titillating twang
                           to the great mass
                               of respectable flour
             that goes
                  to make
                       up the pudding
                           of our modern civilization?

    And pertinent
           to this question another
          --Why is it
             that the pirate has,
           and always has had,
         a certain lurid glamour
               of the heroical
              enveloping him round about?

    Is there,
           deep under the accumulated debris
               of culture,
         a hidden groundwork
               of the old-time savage?

    Is there
         even in these well-regulated
              times an unsubdued nature
                in the respectable
                   mental household of
                       every one of us
         that still kicks
               against the pricks
                   of law and order?

    To make
           my meaning more clear,
         would not every boy,
         for instance
           -- that is,
               every boy of any account--
           rather be a pirate captain
               than a Member of Parliament?

    And we ourselves
          --would we not rather
              read such a story as
             that of Captain Avery's
                  capture of
                       the East Indian treasure ship,
           with its beautiful princess
               and load of jewels
         (which gems
             he sold by the handful,
           history sayeth,
         to a Bristol merchant),
            than,
               say,
             one of Bishop Atterbury's sermons,
            or the goodly Master Robert
                 Boyle's religious