"Gentlemen of fortune": class discourses in Daniel Defoe's A general history of the pyrates

Abstract

While the phenomenon of piracy has existed for centuries and is still present in our times, few are as present in the popular imagination as the pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy of the Eighteenth Century. Despite the lack of primary sources and the sensationalism with which later works discussed this topic, a number of these pirates are still known today, their image shifting from that of a near-positive, romanticised hero to that of a dehumanised fugitive of the law. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the portrayal of a few of the pirates present in Daniel Defoe’s A General History of the Pyrates with the perspective of class and property in mind, connecting such notions to the time of publishing, the public opinion of pirates, and how these depictions helped create our contemporary images of Golden Age western pirates.