Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates By: Howard Pyle (1853-1911) |
---|
![]()
Fiction, Fact & Fancy concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the
Spanish Main: From the writing & Pictures of Howard Pyle:
Compiled by Merle Johnson
CONTENTS FOREWORD BY MERLE JOHNSON PREFACE I. BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
II. THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN BRAND
III. WITH THE BUCCANEERS
IV. TOM CHIST AND THE TREASURE BOX
V. JACK BALLISTER'S FORTUNES
VI. BLUESKIN THE PIRATE
VII. CAPTAIN SCARFIELD
FOREWORD PIRATES, Buccaneers, Marooners, those cruel but picturesque sea wolves
who once infested the Spanish Main, all live in present day conceptions
in great degree as drawn by the pen and pencil of Howard Pyle. Pyle, artist author, living in the latter half of the nineteenth
century and the first decade of the twentieth, had the fine faculty of
transposing himself into any chosen period of history and making
its people flesh and blood again not just historical puppets. His
characters were sketched with both words and picture; with both words
and picture he ranks as a master, with a rich personality which makes
his work individual and attractive in either medium. He was one of the founders of present day American illustration, and his
pupils and grand pupils pervade that field to day. While he bore no
such important part in the world of letters, his stories are modern in
treatment, and yet widely read. His range included historical treatises
concerning his favorite Pirates (Quaker though he was); fiction, with
the same Pirates as principals; Americanized version of Old World fairy
tales; boy stories of the Middle Ages, still best sellers to growing
lads; stories of the occult, such as In Tenebras and To the Soil of the
Earth, which, if newly published, would be hailed as contributions to
our latest cult. In all these fields Pyle's work may be equaled, surpassed, save in one.
It is improbable that anyone else will ever bring his combination of
interest and talent to the depiction of these old time Pirates, any more
than there could be a second Remington to paint the now extinct Indians
and gun fighters of the Great West. Important and interesting to the student of history, the
adventure lover, and the artist, as they are, these Pirate stories and
pictures have been scattered through many magazines and books. Here, in
this volume, they are gathered together for the first time, perhaps
not just as Mr. Pyle would have done, but with a completeness and
appreciation of the real value of the material which the author's
modesty might not have permitted. MERLE JOHNSON.
PREFACE WHY is it that a little spice of deviltry lends not an unpleasantly
titillating twang to the great mass of respectable flour that goes to
make up the pudding of our modern civilization? And pertinent to this
question another Why is it that the pirate has, and always has had,
a certain lurid glamour of the heroical enveloping him round about? Is
there, deep under the accumulated debris of culture, a hidden groundwork
of the old time savage? Is there even in these well regulated times an
unsubdued nature in the respectable mental household of every one of us
that still kicks against the pricks of law and order? To make my meaning
more clear, would not every boy, for instance that is, every boy of any
account rather be a pirate captain than a Member of Parliament? And
we ourselves would we not rather read such a story as that of Captain
Avery's capture of the East Indian treasure ship, with its beautiful
princess and load of jewels (which gems he sold by the handful, history
sayeth, to a Bristol merchant), than, say, one of Bishop Atterbury's
sermons, or the goodly Master Robert Boyle's religious romance of
"Theodora and Didymus"? It is to be apprehended that to the unregenerate
nature of most of us there can be but one answer to such a query. In the pleasurable warmth the heart feels in answer to tales of
derring do Nelson's battles are all mightily interesting, but, even in
spite of their romance of splendid courage, I fancy that the majority of
us would rather turn back over the leaves of history to read how Drake
captured the Spanish treasure ship in the South Sea, and of how he
divided such a quantity of booty in the Island of Plate (so named
because of the tremendous dividend there declared) that it had to be
measured in quart bowls, being too considerable to be counted... Continue reading book >>
|
Genres for this book |
---|
Kids |
Fiction |
Literature |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – Howard Pyle |
Wikipedia – Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|