EXTRACTS: Pirates! Illustrators Special Edition © 2020 The Book Palace (128 PAGES in Full edition)

5 Picturesque or not, pirates were, of course, basically thieves who preyed on seafaring ships and robbed them of their goods and sometimes captured them for their own nefarious purposes. In the early days of piracy—over 2,000 years ago—sea robbers threatened Ancient Greek trade routes; Roman ships were robbed of their cargoes of grain and olive oil, and the Vikings (the word means ‘sea-raider’) routinely attacked shipping and coastal settlements. What is called the ‘Golden Age’ of piracy flourished between 1620 and 1720, when privateers, buccaneers, and corsairs sailed the seven seas in search of wealth. Privateers were lawful pirates who were authorized by their government to attack and pillage ships of enemy nations; Buccaneers were pirates and privateers who operated from bases in theWest Indies and attacked Spanish shipping in the Caribbean; Corsairs were Muslim or Christian pirates who were active in the Mediterranean from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The loot these sea brigands captured was of enormous proportions and a pirate crew might seize a number of ships in a single day, resulting in plunder worth a fortune. Despite what debunkers of the pirate legends may say, pirates did indeed fly the skull and crossbones flag, white on a black field, as well as the plain red flag known as the ‘Jolly Roger’ (the term is believed to stem from the French joli rouge ). Not content with these simple flags, some featured whole skeletons, daggers, cutlasses and bloody hearts, all designed to instil terror into their intended victims. ABOVE: Martin Conisby’s Vengeance by Jefferey Farnol (1921) with cover art by C. E. Brock. BELOW: Another painting by Cecil Glossop for Chums .