Mary Read: Woman Pirate

Who is the pirate novelist Cherie Pugh?

I am a New Zealander by birth, now enjoying the lovely east coast of Australia with my small family. When I was first learning to read, an aunt gave me a book of heroines that inspired me with dreams of the pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny. I began writing fiction when still at university. After a year as a researcher, I felt the need for adventure, and spent four years working my way around the world.

I spent the last year aboard an old wooden ketch, the Nordvag, learning navigation by dead reckoning, and making my way slowly back home. In the Caribbean I re-discovered the story of the Englishwoman, Mary Read, who lived as a man and ended a pirate; and her young American friend, Anne Bonny, who lived openly as a woman rover.

In Sydney, I found the women pirates mentioned in Captain Charles Johnson’s “A General History of the Most Notorious Pirates”, published in 1724. Yet all the original documents were in London, Holland, and the Bahamas. I found the Court Records at the Public Records Office in Kew, “The Trials of Captain Jack Rackam and Other Pirates”, by Robert Baldwin, 1721, as well as all the Colonial records on the pirate settlement of Nassau, and the records of the Dreadnought. I completed my research in London, searching dusty libraries for journals written by sailors and soldiers in the eighteenth century. In Breda, I found the old town almost untouched, and drank the same beer that Mary Read had served in her tavern. The librarian in Nassau could not have been more helpful, and sent reams of information on the islands of the Bahamas and their fascinating history.

Re-creating the life of Mary Read has been a labour of love, as well as the work of half a lifetime. Learning about the real pirates of the Caribbean made it worth it.

I hope you enjoy reading "Mary Read: Sailor, Soldier, Pirate"

Cherie Pugh.

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