13 minSummaryRead it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A sail on the horizon can mean a fortune—or a fight for your life.
Great Pirate Stories, gathered by Joseph Lewis French, brings together short adventures from fiction and sea lore. Buccaneers, corsairs and ocean outlaws sail a world of timber, canvas and rope. A bold captain wants plunder and power. His crew wants its share. Across the water, a merchant captain must protect his cargo and people.
The collection explores the pirate sea, captains and crews, chases and buried treasure, and the price of outlaw freedom. Sails appear, ships give chase, and loyalty comes under strain. A prisoner may need wit as much as courage. Each tale offers a separate adventure, short enough to follow in a single sitting.
What you’ll discover
- The pirate sea Enter an age of sail where the horizon holds both promise and danger.
- Nerve at the helm Meet captains who lead through cunning, with crews whose loyalty faces hard tests.
- The chase begins Follow fast ships into sudden fights, with plunder and safety at stake.
- Treasure and its cost Look beyond hidden wealth to the hunted life that comes with outlaw freedom.
- One sitting at sea Move from one deck to another through short tales by different authors.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this book if you love sea adventure, true accounts of raids and escapes, and the odd customs of pirate crews. It suits listeners who like many voices.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Piracy looks different from each deck
- A trader's appearance hides a trap
- Hunger drives Morgan toward Panama
- Captives build strength through trust
- Morgan combines surprise with deliberate cruelty
- Blackbeard makes fear serve his power
- Pirate crews need rules to survive
- Captives reveal another side of piracy
- Every account has a chosen side
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25 languages, side by side
Great Pirate Stories in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Great Pirate Stories
by Edited by Joseph Lewis French
Twelve hundred starving men chew leather on the road to Panama, and Captain Morgan is leading them.
Challenging5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Ours the wild life in tumult still to range.”
In short
Picture a dark night at sea. A schooner shows no light, and her crew crouches behind a boat on deck.
Great Pirate Stories at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 10 min4 h 10 min fast, 6 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 74,300 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A pirate schooner springs a trap on a cutter
The collection opens with The Piccaroon by Michael Scott. Young Tom Cringle and his lieutenant, Mr. Splinter, are stranded at Carthagena with no ship home. A pilot named Peter Mangrove offers a passage and asks only that they put no questions to the crew.
The vessel is a low schooner dressed like a trader. Yet her copper shines, and her men wear red sashes and long knives. Soon twelve carronades rise from the hold. When the king's cutter Spark appears in the dark, the mate gives a false name and waits. The cutter sends her boat, and her young officer is seized the moment he climbs aboard.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 55 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Great Pirate Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/great-pirate-stories.
Great pirate stories. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/great-pirate-stories
Great Pirate Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/great-pirate-stories.
@book{anonymous2026great,
title = {Great Pirate Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/great-pirate-stories}
}
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What is Great Pirate Stories about?
It is an anthology of pirate tales and true accounts, edited by Joseph Lewis French. The pieces cover raids, captures, escapes, trials and pirate customs across the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the China Sea and the North Atlantic.
Who wrote the stories in Great Pirate Stories?
Joseph Lewis French edited the book. The pieces come from many writers, including Michael Scott, James Fenimore Cooper, Daniel Defoe, John Esquemeling, Samuel Purchas, Howard Pyle, Richard Glasspoole, Lucretia Parker, Arthur Hunt Chute and W. B. Lord.
Are the pirate stories in this book true?
The book mixes fiction and fact. Scott, Cooper and Defoe write tales. Esquemeling, Pyle, Purchas, Glasspoole and others report real captures, raids and trials, and Chute's piece is a sea legend told as folklore.
The author
Joseph Lewis French
American editor and anthologist
Joseph Lewis French (1858–1936) was an American writer and editor who lived in the United States. He wrote fiction and poetry and selected stories for collections. Great Ghost Stories was published in 1918. The words “Selected by” indicate his work as an editor; they are not part of his name.
“Ours the wild life in tumult still to range.”
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