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And a Bottle of Rum
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12186 |
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BOOK WORLD
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2 / 1987 |
4,715 Words |
| Author
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Regis A. Courtemanche
Regis A. Courtemanche is professor of history at C.W. Post
College of Long Island University, New York. |
CAPTAIN KIDD AND THE WAR AGAINST THE PIRATES
Robert C. Ritchie
Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1986
306 pp., $20.00
Pirates! What youthful memories that word evokes: Treasure Island, with Long John Silver, parrot on shoulder, a figure of friendly menace. One of N.C. Wyeth's great paintings depicted pirates in a longboat - Blackbeard, their leader with pistols thrust into his wide belt, gold earrings gleaming and surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of the world, eager to claim a treasure or cut a throat.
Another of Wyeth's famous illustrations shows a young boy bent over his schoolbooks - but in his imagination, a great Spanish galleon looms, beset by pirates - cannons booming and boarders swinging onto her deck. Ah, he doubtless thinks, must life be only little brothers and long division?
And who can forget the pirate ship captured by Peter Pan and the children, floating over Wendy's house with moon at its back, secured by a single line to a London chimney pot.
As we grew old and graduated to Errol Flynn, Cornell Wilde, Burt Lancaster, and Yul Brynner, our views changed. Hollywood's pirates were usually a tame lot, neat and clean shaven. If given the glimpse of a shapely ankle or toothy smile - usually belonging to Virginia Mayo or Yvonne DeCarlo - they readily surrendered their freedom for the dubious pleasures of
... (1939 of 26264 Characters)
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