Captured by Pirates: 22 Firsthand Accounts of Murder & Mayhem on the High Seas

by John Richard Stephens (Editor)

Book by

Genres: History, Pirates, Nonfiction

392 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1996

Reviews

[Noelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some chapters of this book were great and really amazing but others were dragging and kinda boring. I understand that people have different writing styles I just kinda wish they were summed up to make it more interesting and understandable. But the ones that were good were REALLY good. I love anything pirates so enjoyed reading this.

[jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty-two accounts of people, mostly professional seamen, who were captured by pirates. Most of the accounts span across 100 years, from the early 1700's to the early 1800's, and cover a wide variance of pirate behavior. Some crews were of the gentlemanly sort, who kept violence to a minimum and were only interested in the cargo, while others were barbaric, such as in one account when a man was forced to watch as his captain's arm were chopped off and others of the crew were tortured to death.

For anyone who doubts that meeting with pirates could be really scary, this is proof that surviving often came down to pure luck. 4.5 stars

[Mark Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quality of the firsthand accounts is wildly uneven,with some being really quite enthralling and others being disappointingly dull. How can anyone possibly tell a boring story about the time they were captured by pirates? Anyway, it's still a good read, but more so if you're willing to skip a chapter here and there.