The Pirate King
The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy
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- $28.99
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- $28.99
Publisher Description
The incredible story of the “Robin Hood of the Seas,” who absconded with millions during the Golden Age of Piracy and who harbored an even greater secret.
Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him "the pirate king" for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero. Rumors swirled about his disappearance. The only certainty is that Henry Avery became a ghost.
What happened to the notorious Avery has been pirate history’s most baffling cold case for centuries. Now, in a remote archive, a coded letter written by "Avery the Pirate" himself, years after he disappeared, reveals a stunning truth. He was a pirate that came in from the cold . . .
In The Pirate King, Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan brilliantly tie Avery to the shadowy lives of two other icons of the early 18th century, including Daniel Defoe, the world-famous novelist and—as few people know—a deep-cover spy with more than a hundred pseudonyms, and Archbishop Thomas Tenison, a Protestant with a hatred of Catholic France.
Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan's The Pirate King brilliantly reveals the untold epic story of Henry Avery in all it's colorful glory—his exploits, his survival, his secret double life, and how he inspired the golden age of piracy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this twisty account, marine archeologist Kingsley (Enslaved) and shipwreck hunter Cowan (Castaway and Wrecked) trace the life of 17th-century pirate Henry Avery. In 1696, Avery led a fleet of pirate ships in an attack against a Mughal convoy on its way to Mecca loaded with a fortune in gold, silver, and silk. After snagging this monumental score, Avery disappeared, mystifying embarrassed British officials and the furious Mughal emperor, souring international relations, and making Avery a popular figure in British song and legend. In 1978, shipwreck hunter (and Cowan's late wife) Zélide Cowan discovered evidence of Avery's post-1696 existence in the form of a partially encrypted letter in the Scottish Record Office. Addressed in 1700 from "the pirate Avery" to an underling of spymaster (and Archbishop of Canterbury) Thomas Tenison, the letter referenced a completed mission. Pointing to author Daniel Defoe's work as a spy in the same ring, as well as Defoe's writings seemingly inspired by Avery's life, the authors speculate that Avery and Defoe were close friends. This line of conjecture stretches thin, but fascinating descriptions of turn-of-the-18th-century espionage pieced together from archival scraps more than compensate, and other claims hold more water (such as that Britain probably offered Avery a secret pardon in exchange for the treasure). It's a winding yarn.
