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

6 It goes without saying that pirates excelled as seamen. They handled their small, light, fast craft with consummate skill and their decks were always cleared for action. Once a sail was sighted, they were off in deadly, single- minded pursuit. They believed in freedom from autocratic rule but discipline on board a pirate ship was often more effective than elsewhere. When a man joined the pirate crew he had to sign the pirates’ articles, swearing on the Bible. Major decisions were usually made by show of hands and not by the captain. The command of the pirate captain was only paramount in pursuit and battle and he was chosen, according to a contemporary source, as “one superior for knowledge and boldness”, as being “pistol-proof ”. The pirates were generous to their shipmates andmen who lost eyes or limbs were allowed to live on board ship, taking a half share of the plunder and helping out in the galley. It will be remembered that the most famous fictitious pirate of all had a peg leg and was a ‘sea cook’. The pirates’ retribution, however, could be extreme: some offenders were marooned on a desert island far from land and left there to die, while others could be subject to the cruellest tortures imaginable. The earliest chronicler of the pirates was a Flemish barber-surgeon named Alexander Olivier Exquemeling who sailed with the buccaneers and took part TOP: Black Bartlemy’s Treasure by Jefferey Farnol (1920). Farnol was an extremely popular and prolific novelist of historical adventure. All the first edition dustjackets of his books were painted by C. E. Brock. ABOVE: The Boys’ Friend Library was published by the Amalgamated Press between 1906 and 1940. RIGHT: Dead Man Tell No Tales , mixed-media by Charles Crombie. Crombie was primarily a cartoonist, but occasionally did illustrations as well.