The true stories—some humorous, some bloodcurdling, all fascinating—of the famous sea-going scoundrels who plundered North America from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century.

BLACKBEARD, who shot members of his crew from time to time just to remind his men what sort of person he was.

HENRY MORGAN,  the infamous pirate who became first rich, and then respectable, with the result that he was knighted and made Deputy-Governor of Jamaica.

JEAN LAFITTE, who set foot aboard ship only twice in his life, but who controlled a fabulously profitable piracy business with an iron fist.

CAPTAIN KIDD, the most blackhearted buccaneer of all, whose real exploits surpass in horror and cunning the legends about him.

And there are the stories of many lesser-known brigands and cutthroats, including two lady pirates whose cutlasses and pistols were as deadly as any man's

From the dust jacket of the 1967 Macmillan reprint edition