The Pirate King by Sean Kingsley

The Pirate King

The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy

Sean Kingsley, Rex Cowan

Pegasus Books · Print & ebook · April 2, 2024

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.

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Who it’s for
A salty, high-stakes slice of Stuart-era history, with the long horizon of piracy in view.
Genres
Maritime History & Piracy, Aviation & Nautical Lives, Heists & Robberies
Published
Pegasus Books, April 2, 2024

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About this book

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.

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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.

Saltwater History

A salty, high-stakes slice of Stuart-era history, with the long horizon of piracy in view.

Come here for

  • seventeenth-century maritime history
  • a sustained, immersion-first read

Expect

  • Henry Avery at the center
  • history that reads like a sea-worn yarn

Where it sits

Maritime History & Piracy92%
Heists & Robberies27%
Aviation & Nautical Lives26%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Intelligence & Espionage
  • Maritime History & Piracy
  • Heists & Robberies
Authors
Sean Kingsley, Rex Cowan
Publisher
Pegasus Books
Published
April 2, 2024
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Intelligence & Espionage