The Pirates - A Who's Who Giving Particulars of the Lives & Deaths of the Pirates & Buccaneers

by Philip Gosse

Philip Gosse (1879-1959), nieto del naturalista inglés Philip Henry Gosse e hijo del escritor Sir Edmund Gosse, es uno de los más afamados historiadores, en el siglo XX, de la piratería. Riguroso y bien informado, nunca consideró necesario, sin embargo, prescindir del sentido del humor y la amenidad que campean en todos sus escritos y que le han convertido en un clásico del tema. Su labor se resume en cuatro volúmenes, publicados todos ellos en menos de una década: The Pirates Who?s Who (1924), My Pirate Library (1926), Hawkins Scourge of Spain (1930) y The History of Piracy (1932), el más reeditado que cuenta con dos excelentes traducción en español; una de Lino Novás Calvo (1935), que será publicada próximamente en esta colección, y otra de Rodolfo Selke (1946), para «Centauro», la editorial mexicana del exiliado español Juan José Domenchin.

Genres: Pirates, History, Nonfiction, Nautical

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Philip Henry George Gosse (1879-1959), was a writer and physician. He was the son of Sir Edmund Gosse and grandson of Philip Henry Gosse.

Reviews

[Antón · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite useful to find names and characters from the History of Piracy, but merely that. Much of the information is outdated or proven false, though it's written in a witty style and its mistakes are easily forgiven considering the time the book was written. For example, taking characters like Gasparilla, Red Legs Greaves or Misson and Caraccioli as factual pirates when they are proven to be merely legends, or saying that Benito de Soto was portuguese instead of spanish.
Valuable as a starting point for a research, but it shouldn't be your only source.

PD: La edición de 2003 de Isla de la Tortuga está plagada de errores de traducción que no se si se corresponden con lo escrito por Gosse.

[Apriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would probably be a good beginning book for a young reader wanting to get into pirate history but if you’ve read much about pirates already then you’re probably not going to learn anything new. Also it can get a little tedious since it’s basically akin to reading a dictionary and most of the entries simply state the pirates name, who’s crew he was a member of, and when he was hanged. I was also disappointed that there were no notes or bibliography and I’m pretty sure I found a few factual errors.

[Rachel Grover · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book as my free e-book choice. It is nonfiction and from Project Gutenberg. It is basically an encyclopedia of famous pirates and their adventures. I liked this book because it showed a lot about how the pirates were interconnected and gave details about their lives. I would put this book in the hands of a middle or high school student who likes pirates or enjoyed the movie series, Pirates of the Caribbean. Many students don't believe that pirates actually existed, and this book is a great beginning resource for students to learn more about them.

[Ed Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available from PG. The majority of the entries are simply a name and where they were hanged or sold into indenture. There are some very interesting biographies though for the more famous of the pirates.

I think it would be interesting if this were updated by someone able to sift through records from the 15th through 19th centuries in Spanish, Portuguese, French and other languages - not necessarily European.