"This is the most authoritative and highly literate account of these pernicious people that I have ever read." -- Patrick O'Brian Pirates are so much a part of legend that it is easy to forget they actually existed. UNDER THE BLACK FLAG tells their story in a rollicking account of the golden age of piracy that is packed with history, anecdote, and above all adventure. Here are the true stories of such bloodthirsty legends as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, Anne Bonny, and the fearsome Mary Read. And here are rousing descriptions of what ships pirates sailed, what punishments they exacted, what they really wore, and how they flourished--or perished. From the smoky havoc of shipboard battle to the loneliness of a fugitive's life at sea, this spellbinding narrative vividly brings the brutal world of pirates to life.

Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates (Harvest Book)

History

Cordingly, David

World

Mariner Books

"This is the most authoritative and highly literate account of these pernicious people that I have ever read." -- Patrick O'BrianPirates are so much a part of legend that it is easy to forget they actually existed. UNDER THE BLACK FLAG tells their story in a rollicking account of the golden age of piracy that is packed with history, anecdote, and above all adventure. Here are the true stories of such bloodthirsty legends as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, Anne Bonny, and the fearsome Mary Read. And here are rousing descriptions of what ships pirates sailed, what punishments they exacted, what they really wore, and how they flourished--or perished. From the smoky havoc of shipboard battle to the loneliness of a fugitive's life at sea, this spellbinding narrative vividly brings the brutal world of pirates to life.

Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates

Sports & Outdoors

Water Sports

Marine painting in England, 1700-1900

Studio Vista

For centuries the sea has been regarded as a male domain. Fisherman, navy officers, pirates, and explorers roamed the high seas while their wives and daughters stayed on shore. Oceangoing adventurers and the crews of their ships were part of an all-male world — or were they? In this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that in fact an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains. A few were smuggled aboard by officers or seaman. A number of cases have come to light of young women dressing in men’s clothes and working alongside the sailors for months, and sometimes years. In the U.S. and Britsh navies, it was not uncommon for the wives of bosuns, carpenters, and cooks to go to sea on warships. Cordingly’s tremendous research shows that there was indeed a thriving female population — from female pirates to the sirens of legend — on and around the high seas. A landmark work of women’s history disguised as a spectacularly entertaining yarn, Women’s Sailors and Sailor’s Women will surprise and delight readers.

Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History

Random House]

For centuries, the sea has been regarded as a male domain, but in this illuminating historical narrative, maritime scholar David Cordingly shows that an astonishing number of women went to sea in the great age of sail. Some traveled as the wives or mistresses of captains; others were smuggled aboard by officers or seamen. And Cordingly has unearthed stories of a number of young women who dressed in men’s clothes and worked alongside sailors for months, sometimes years, without ever revealing their gender. His tremendous research shows that there was indeed a thriving female population—from pirates to the sirens of myth and legend—on and around the high seas. A landmark work of women’s history disguised as a spectacularly entertaining yarn, Women Sailors and Sailor’s Women will surprise and delight.

Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Random House Trade Paperbacks

Marine Painting in England 1700-1900

C. N. Potter; distributed by Crown Publishers

For this rousing, revisionist history, the former head of exhibitions at England's National Maritime Museum has combed original documents and records to produce a most authoritative and definitive account of piracy's "Golden Age." As he explodes many accepted myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is pure fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a truth that is more complex and often bloodier. 16 pp. of photos. Maps.

Romance

Contemporary

This is the story of the Bellerophon, a ship of the line known to her crew as the Billy Ruffian. And like any good biography it runs from birth (in a small shipyard on the river Medway near Rochester in 1782), to death (in a breaker's yard a mile or so upstream at the age of fifty-four). In the intervening years, under fourteen captains, she played a conspicuous part in three of the most famous of all sea battles: the battle of the Glorious First of June (1794), the opening action against Revolutionary France; the battle of the Nile (1798), which halted Napoleon's eastern expansion from Cairo; and the battle of Trafalgar (1805), which established British naval supremacy for 100 years and during which her captain was shot dead with a musket ball an hour before Nelson was mortally wounded. But her crowning glory came six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, when the Napoleon, trapped in Rochefort, surrendered to the captain of the ship that had dogged his steps for more than twenty years.

Billy Ruffian : His Majesty's Ship 'Bellerophon' and the Downfall of Napoleon - A Biography of a Ship of the Line 1782-1836

Military

Bloomsbury USA

Patrick O' Brian, C.S. Forester and Captain Marryat all based their literary heroes on Thomas Cochrane, but Cochrane's exploits were far more daring and exciting than those of his fictional counterparts. He was a man of action, whose bold and impulsive nature meant he was often his own worst enemy. Writing with gripping narrative skill and drawing on his own travels and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of a flawed Romantic hero who helped define his age.

Cochrane the Dauntless: The Life and Adventures of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 1775-1860

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

The fall of 1856 was one of the worst seasons that sailors off the coast of Cape Horn had ever seen. The clipper ship Neptune's Car, a trading vessel from New York, had battled huge waves and gale-force winds for weeks. Desperate to save his men and cargo from the violent storm, Captain Joshua Patten spent eight sleepless days and nights on deck. On the ninth day at the helm, he collapsed with a raging fever, and his crew panicked. As freezing rain and wind howled through the rigging and death seemed imminent, just one person on board stepped forward to take control of the ship: Captain Patten's nineteen-year-old wife, Mary, then five months' pregnant with their first child. When the ship safely reached its destination of San Franciso that November, Mary Patten was hailed as a national heroine.

Literature & Fiction

Thorndike Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cordingly, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cordingly, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cordingly, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates (Harvest Book)

Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates

Marine painting in England, 1700-1900

Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History

Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives

Marine Painting in England 1700-1900

Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates

Billy Ruffian : His Majesty's Ship 'Bellerophon' and the Downfall of Napoleon - A Biography of a Ship of the Line 1782-1836

Cochrane the Dauntless: The Life and Adventures of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 1775-1860

Women Sailors and Sailors' Women: An Untold Maritime History