Pirates

Cultural perceptions

Pirates are a frequent topic in fiction and, in their Caribbean incarnation, are associated with certain stereotypical manners of speaking and dress, some of them wholly fictional: "nearly all our notions of their behavior come from the golden age of fictional piracy, which reached its zenith in 1881 with the appearance of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island." Hugely influential in shaping the popular conception of pirates, Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, published in London in 1724, is the prime source for the biographies of many well known pirates of the Golden Age. The book gives an almost mythical status to pirates, with naval historian David Cordingly writing: "it has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates."