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LHMP #547e Johnson 1724 A General History of the Pyrates Part 5

Full citation:

Johnson, Charles (pseudonym). 1724. A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. London: T. Warner.

Publication summary:

A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Part 5: Analysis of the Mary Read Narrative

Only two events in Read’s narrative can be tied with certainty to a specific date: her husband’s death around the date of the Peace of Reswick, which occurred in 1697, and her capture and trial in 1720. The following highly speculative timeline is worked backwards and forwards around these dates. Note that this timeline attempts to make sense of the General History narrative, without otherwise evaluating its likely accuracy.

Est. 1675: Read's mother marries a sailor, gets pregnant, her husband leaves and never returns. The child was a boy.
Est. 1677: Read's mother gets pregnant while her husband is still absent. She has been living with her husband’s family and leaves to conceal the pregnancy. Her first child dies and Mary Read is born.
Est. 1679: Mary and her mother are living in the country (“for 3-4 years”)
Est. 1680: Mary and her mother return to London to her husband’s family. Mary is passed off as a boy and claimed to be her dead half-brother in order to claim monetary support from her mother-in-law.
Est. 1690: Mary is 13 and knows her history. Her putative grandmother has died. Mary is put into service but quits to become a sailor (in male disguise). (This is a reasonable age for an adolescent to go to sea in that era.)
1697: Mary’s military career has included sailor, cadet in a regiment of foot in Flanders, regiment of horse in Flanders (when she falls in love with a comrade), discloses her sex to her comrade, Mary begins living as a woman and they marry, they manage a dining establishment in Breda, her husband dies around the time of the Peace of Reswick (1697). (The timeline is based on a very rough estimate for each of the described stages in her career.)
Est 1702: Mary tries to continue the business on her own but eventually returns to male dress and the army for economic reasons. She goes to Holland for this. (In this year there was a campaign in Holland as part of the War of Spanish Succession, making this date plausible.)
Est. 1705: Seeing no hope of advancement in the regiment, Mary takes sail to the West Indies. This date is a guess, but there’s a long time-gap until the next clear timepoint. Mary’s ship is taken by English pirates and she joins them. She remains on the pirate vessel for “some time.”
Est. Early 1718: The pirate crew that Mary is part of takes the King’s Pardon. This is the date of the initial offer of the pardon.
Est. Late 1718: Mary and others take the governor’s offer to turn privateers against the Spanish (which occurred in this year) but then turn pirate instead.
Est. June 1719 (possibly later): Mary joins Rackham’s crew. (The narrative indicates she joined after Bonny, who supposedly joined around this date.)
Est. Early 1720: Mary is attracted to a fellow pirate, reveals her sex to him, and becomes his lover. She pre-empts a duel he plans by killing his opponent first.
July 1720 (calculated): The earliest possible date that Mary could have become pregnant, if she was in fact pregnant at her trial but had not yet given birth by the time she died. (This is purely conjectural, as the fate of a hypothetical child would not necessarily have been recorded and there’s no evidence that the pregnancy was real.)
September 1, 1720 (from the trial record): Mary agrees to turn pirate with Rackham. (This need not be in conflict with the General History’s much earlier date of her piratical career if it’s simply an arbitrary date used by the court.)
September-October 1720 (from the trial record): Various acts of piracy by the Rackham crew, culminating in their capture in late October.
November 28, 1720: Mary is tried and convicted. She pleads pregnancy but per the General History she declines to name the father, who is said to have been acquitted. (But note that none of Rackham’s crew were acquitted.)
“Soon after her trial” (April 28, 1721 per parish records): Mary dies of an illness. There is no mention of a child.

By this timeline, Mary Read would have been in her mid-40s when she died. If her military career in Flanders was more compressed than I have estimated, then perhaps 5 years could be shaved off that, but a limit is placed by the reference to the Peace of Reswick and the reference to her age when she first went to sea. Possibly the most implausible element in this timeline is the dozen or more years when she is initially supposed to have been a pirate prior to taking the King’s Pardon. Given the brief and chaotic careers of more solidly documented pirates, this long an uninterrupted stint seems unlikely.

An Analysis of the Plausibility of the General History’s Account of Mary Read’s Life

The first key question regarding Mary Read’s supposed biography is: if this information is true and correct, how would Johnson have become acquainted with such extensive details going back well before Mary was born? (Much of the following discussion will apply to both women, but I’ll discuss issues specific to Anne Bonny later.) The author of the General History makes a carefully vague claim that “there are living Witnesses enough to justify what we have laid down concerning them,” but note that he doesn’t claim that these living witnesses provided him with the content, simply that they could “justify” the story. And those witnesses could only “justify” the parts of the story that were presented publicly during the trial in Jamaica.

Could the details have come directly from Mary herself? There are some narrative nods to this scenario in the text, as when an event prior to Mary’s birth is commented as “whether [this happened] Mary could not tell.” But direct reporting is either impossible or highly implausible. Travel times between Jamaica and England alone rule out direct interview. By the time news of the capture of two women pirates traveled to London, even if an intrepid investigator had jumped on the next ship to the Bahamas, when he arrived, she would have already been dead for months.

Could someone already in Jamaica have interviewed Mary while she was in prison and elicited this highly detailed story from her? And then delivered it to Johnson without leaving any other documentary trace? While not technically impossible, it seems far more likely that someone who went to the trouble of acquiring this highly newsworthy story would have taken credit. Sensationalist news was quite popular in the 18th century. This hypothetical researcher would have been aware of the value of the story. Furthermore, in the second edition there are accounts attributed to just such third-party reporters, which are carefully framed as letters written to the Johnson. But there is no such framing for Mary’s story.

Could the information have been elicited from Mary’s shipmates? In addition to the problem that they wouldn’t necessarily know all the details of her earlier life, they were all dead. Hung within days of their trials and before the trial of Bonny and Read that might have roused sufficient interest for such an interview.

The claim that the detailed backstory came out at the trial is given as “some may be tempted to think the whole Story no better than a Novel or Romance; but since it is supported by many thousand Witnesses, I mean the People of Jamaica, who were present at their Tryals, and heard the Story of their Lives, upon the first discovery of their Sex.” This can’t stand as demonstrating a source of any information that wasn’t included in the trial record. While it’s clear that the content of the trial records were incorporated into the General History, the latter includes vastly more details.

Given the amount of detail that did appear in the trial records, it would be at the very least odd that no trace of the women’s pre-piratical lives is recorded there, if it had indeed been presented at trial. Furthermore, the questions during the trials were focused on the specifics of the piracy charges. There was no context for asking about “the story of their lives.” Newspaper accounts in England that covered criminal histories or crossdressing narratives would often go into this sort of narrative history, but there is no trace of such an account being taken down and published in Jamaica.

Overall, it isn’t simply that no documentary basis for the stories is given, but that a demonstrably false basis is offered, purely in support of the assertion that the stories are “true.” Some introductory material in the second edition makes claims about the source of additional material included in volume 2, saying that the author had access to the journals of pirates (brought away by someone who had been their prisoner) and of ship commanders. This claim is not specific to the Bonny and Read accounts and also clearly doesn’t apply to the material in the first edition (volume 1). As noted previously, some of the volume 2 additions are in the form of letters to “Captain Johnson” claiming that they heard he was planning a second edition and wanted to provide him with material to include in it but no such framing is presented for the backstrories of Bonny and Read.

Is it possible that Johnson spent the approximately 2.5 years between having access to the detailed trial records and the first publication of the General History to do intensive on-the-ground investigation in England, Flanders, Holland, and the Caribbean to turn up records of births, residence, enlistments, shipboard activities, etc. necessary to piece together this full narrative? In addition to spending that time writing the full text of the work? (And, if the theory that Defoe is the author is correct, also spending that time writing several other books?) I feel comfortable saying that this is not plausible, simply in terms of the amount of work involved and the types of information that would be available even in the best circumstances. In fact, many of the details given in the narrative are not ones that would be available from documentary sources and where any persons involved who might know them were no longer alive. But let’s go through a few of those items in detail.

The story of Mary’s birth and the circumstances under which her mother decided to raise her as a boy might hypothetically have been told to Mary before she left home, but by definition were not known to anyone else, as the point was to conceal Mary’s illegitimate birth and true sex. This is information for which Mary would be the only plausible source and we’ve already dismissed the likelihood that the narrative came from her. This sort of narrative of gender disguise for the purpose of deceit is common in 17th century drama, as is the motif that cross-dressing was initially imposed on a child rather than being chosen as a deliberate strategy. It is far likelier that the story of her birth and cross-gender upbringing were invented retroactively based on motifs common in popular culture. (Klein’s “Busty Buccaneers and Sapphic Swashbucklers” offers an extensive discussion of the intersection of Bonny and Read’s biographies in the General History with existing pop culture narratives, and to a large extent I am simply presenting her conclusions on this point.)

Mary’s various stints in military units align well with trial records of passing women in the Low Countries in the 17th century. (See Dekker and van de Pol.) Thus, while the events are quite plausible, there is also a clear context in which they might have been borrowed from existing accounts of other women. The motif of a passing woman in the military falling in love with a comrade (or joining up to accompany a lover) is common in 17th century broadside ballads. Once again, the personal and private details describing this incident, if true, are ones only Mary would have known and could only have been reported directly by her.

The events around the disclosure of Mary’s sex and her marriage to the trooper offer another context for doubt. “[T]hey exchanged Promises, and when the Campaign was over, and the Regiment marched into Winter Quarters, they bought Woman’s Apparel for her, with such Money as they could make up betwixt them, and were publickly married. The Story of two Troopers marrying each other, made a great Noise, so that several Officers were drawn by Curiosity to assist at the Ceremony, and they agreed among themselves that every one of them should make a small Present to the Bride, towards House-keeping, in Consideration of her having been their fellow Soldier.”

As Dekker & van de Pol document, real-life passing women in the military typically received harsh treatment when discovered, at a minimum including banishment, but often including corporal punishment. It was rare for such a woman to be celebrated and praised, except in fictionalized and literary versions of the genre. Conversely, if it had been the case that “the Story of two Troopers marrying each other made a great Noise” this is exactly the sort of romanticized circumstance that was turned into ballads and broadsheets and news items. So while it’s not impossible that Johnson could have come across such a story, tying it specifically to Mary Read would have been much more difficult without her personal testimony and additional details. To some extent, the level of concrete detail about the couple’s post-military career (“they immediately set up an Eating House or Ordinary, which was the Sign of the Three Horse-Shoes, near the Castle of Breda”) and the reference to financial difficulties after the death of the husband and slack trade after the Peace of Reswick lends credence to the hypothesis that this incident is taken from an actual report of someone, but not necessarily Mary.

The hypothesis that Mary’s military career and subsequent marriage might have been borrowed from an actual pre-existing report could make sense of one aspect of the timeline. The Peace of Reswick (1697) is firmly nailed down in time. (See Wikipedia: The Peace of Ryswick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Ryswick) was a set of peace treaties signed in late 1697 ending the Nine Years War. The UK was a party to the treaty, in alliance with the Dutch Republic as part of the Grand Alliance.) Incorporating this event as part of her history means that the 23 years before Mary’s capture as part of Rackham’s crew must be accounted for in some fashion. The two activities attributed to her during that 23 years are serving in the military in Holland and serving as a pirate up until that crew takes the King’s Pardon. This period is glossed over is a much lower level of detail that other parts of her life.

If (hypothetically) the entirety of Mary’s supposed military career was borrowed wholesale, and if that is the only basis for pinning her life to specific dates prior to the 1710s, then not only does the length of her piratical career begin to look more plausible, but her age at capture could be significantly lower than the full General History timeline would require. Of course, if we accept the hypothesis that the General History incorporated large chunks of unrelated material to fill out Mary’s biography (and potentially Anne’s as well), then the assumed veracity of any part of that story goes out the window.

Mary Read’s narrative includes two potentially erotic encounters while part of Rackham’s crew. Both narratives include the significant element that Mary’s gender disguise is complete and that everyone assumes her to be a man. As we’ve seen from the trial records, this is contradicted by eyewitness accounts not only that she only wore male clothing during combat, but that, when in male dress, she was identifiable as a woman from “the largeness of [her] breasts.”

As Klein notes, an essential component of “acceptable” sapphic cross-dressing narratives was the function of successful gender disguise in erasing the possibility of a woman knowingly desiring another woman, while salaciously toying with the specter of both male and female homoeroticism. Thus when “Anne Bonny took her for a handsome young Fellow, and for some Reasons best known to herself, first discovered her Sex to Mary Read” the narrative dodges the image of male homoeroticism by having Anne reveal herself to be female before making a move on the “handsome young fellow.” Immediately, “Mary Read knowing what she would be at, and being very sensible of her own Incapacity that Way, was forced to come to a right Understanding with her, and so to the great Disappointment of Anne Bonny, she let her know she was a Woman also.” That is, the narrative erases the possibility of any actual erotic encounter between the women (“her own incapacity”), negates the possibility that Anne might desire Mary as a woman (“great disappointment”), although it doesn’t entirely negate the possibility that Mary was negotiating for a sapphic encounter.

However, we come back again to the question “if this were a true account, how could the information about these events and the interior thoughts of the two women come to be known to the Johnson?” Even more than the episodes around Mary’s birth and childhood, and the supposed soldier-marriage in Flanders, this is an encounter that—based on the framing within the narrative—could not be known to anyone except the two women. Anne supposedly let Rackham in on the secret of Mary’s sex to quiet his jealousy, but if he was murderously jealous, would she have revealed to him that the encounter came about because of her own sexual advance? We’re going down a speculative rabbit-hole here, but only because we’re looking for internal consistency within a fictionalized narrative. Within that narrative, the matter continued to be kept secret from the rest of the crew. So at the very most, we have three people who had some access to it, one of whom was executed within days of his trial. The possible scenarios for direct reporting by Mary have already been reviewed, and similar scenarios for direct reporting by Anne will be considered later.

Mary’s second erotic encounter is framed as occurring after the previous events. Mary is said to have fallen for a young man pressed into service on Rackham’s ship. There are various points where Mary’s story attempts to frame her as the “good girl” in contrast to Anne’s “bad girl.” Thus Anne falls for the pirate Rackham and is promiscuous, while Mary falls for the pressed man and insinuates herself into his affections, not only by revealing her sex to him, but by implying that she, too, is dissatisfied with a pirate’s life. They become “mess-mates and strict companions”—a typical arrangement for men on shipboard, but with unavoidable homoerotic undertones. “When she found he had a Friendship for her, as a Man, she suffered the Discovery to be made, by carelesly shewing her Breasts, which were very White.” That is, when he showed homoerotic interest in her, she short-circuited that by divulging her sex, just as she had with the soldier in Flanders. There is a detailed anecdote about how Mary was so devoted and protective of her lover that when he was due to fight a duel, she pre-empted it by challenging and killing his opponent first.

The outcome of this relationship provides another unresolvable conflict with the documentary record. When Mary “pleads her belly” at her trial, the General History says she indicated this man was the father of her child while refusing to name him. (As another part of framing Mary as the “good girl,” she is made to claim that she considered herself married to her fellow pirate and that “she had never committed adultery or fornication with any man.”) But where the story trips up, not only in the absence of any of these details from the trial record beyond the claim of pregnancy, is in claiming that her lover was acquitted. None of Rackham’s crew were acquitted—not even the 9 men who claimed they had only been briefly on board for hospitality (and who could not have included Mary’s hypothetical long-term lover in any case). Of the 8 trials detailed in the official report, only one included any persons acquitted of piracy (and that for faults in the evidence), and that was for activities while traveling from Africa to the Caribbean and with no contact with Rackham or his crew. While there may well have been other trials than those recorded in this specific document, this one focuses strongly on pirates captured in the same timeframe and region as Rackham. So the entire set of incidents involving Mary’s supposed lover is riddled with holes and impossibilities.

Now that the General History is covering events around the trial itself, the contradictions with the official report are very evident. The General History says, “one of the Evidences against her, deposed, that being taken by Rackam, and detain’d some Time on Board, he fell accidentally into Discourse with Mary Read, whom he taking for a young Man, ask’d her, what Pleasure she could have in being concerned in such Enterprizes, where her Life was continually in Danger, by Fire or Sword; and not only so, but she must be sure of dying an ignominious Death, if she should be taken alive?—She answer’d, that as to hanging, she thought it no great Hardship…[followed by a political tirade].” This is a specific claim about a conversation said to be part of the trial deposition, but no such deposition is included in the official trial record.

The General History’s account of Mary Read concludes with: “Being found quick with Child, as has been observed, her Execution was respited, and it is possible she would have found Favour, but she was seiz’d with a violent Fever, soon after her Tryal, of which she died in Prison.”

Note that Mary was not “found” pregnant, but only claimed to be so—an extremely common dodge among women condemned to death. The trial record indicates that a follow-up investigation would be performed, but if it was, it did not become part of the official record. It could be hypothesized that, in lieu of a formal investigation of the pregnancy, Mary was simply held for the length of a full term. The record of her death from illness comes almost 5 months to the day after the date of her trial. Given that, the veracity of her pregnancy claim could be moot.

In summary, the combination of the implausibility that the author of the General History could have had access to many of the reported details of Mary’s past history, the presence of common pop culture motifs and narratives in that reported history, and the number of outright contradictions from more reliable sources point to the vast majority of the information on her that appears only in the General History being either outright invention or adaptations of existing unrelated narratives, whether based in truth or completely fictional.

With that said, let’s move on to the chapter in the General History about Anne Bonny.

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The Theory of Related-ivity: Segment I

Monday, March 16, 2026 - 08:45

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The Theory of Related-ivity:

A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category

by Heather Rose Jones

(This is a serialized article exploring the history of the Best Related Work Hugo category in its various names and versions.)

Contents

Part 1: Background

1.1 Author’s Preface

1.2 Introduction and Definitions

1.3 Prior Analyses

Part 1: Background

1.1 Author’s Preface

I was inspired to do this study when my co-author Camestros Felapton and I were chosen as Finalists for the Best Related Work Hugo award in 2025 for “Charting the Cliff,” our incredibly geeky statistical analysis of the 2023 Hugo nomination data and its discrepancies. Having a personal stake in the question “What is it that fans consider to be a ‘Related Work’ and how has it changed?” I thought I’d apply my love of analysis (which is what got me the nomination) to this question.

In writing this essay, I’ve considered an audience that may know relatively little about the Hugo Awards and their process, so more knowledgeable people will need to have patience. And, in the end, it will probably be an awkward mix of too much information and too much assumed knowledge.

Don’t expect an entertaining narrative history. My forte is the cataloging and organization of data, with a layer of interpretive analysis. The story is not linear and will loop back and jump ahead at various times, with similar topics being discussed in different places depending on greatest relevance. I’ve tried to present data in the manner that presents the analysis most clearly, whether through graphs, tables, or anecdotal discussion.

There is unavoidably a great deal of my own personal judgment in how the data is coded, though I have always included explanations of my process. I’ve tried to avoid inserting personal opinions about how the Best Related award ought to behave in describing how it is observed to behave, but I do highlight a number of topics for consideration at the end, and some of my own thoughts will leak through at that point.

The raw data and its coding is too extensive to include comfortably in this publication itself, but a copy has been made available for viewing or download at the following URLs:

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mfa8wdwxou7z7tjfczg67/Theory-of-Related-ivity-Data.xlsx?rlkey=qj3za4m1xecdpbvudx255gpc6&st=21iyh39p&dl=0

1.2 Introduction and Definitions

"World Science Fiction Society,” "WSFS,” "World Science Fiction Convention,” "Worldcon,” "NASFiC,” "Lodestar Award,” "The Hugo Award,” the Hugo Award Logo, and the distinctive design of the Hugo Award Rocket are service marks of Worldcon Intellectual Property, a California non-profit corporation managed by the Mark Protection Committee of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society.[1]

The Best Related Work Hugo award has had three different names across its lifetime, with accompanying changes in scope. When this study refers to “Non-Fiction,” “Related Book,” or “Related Work,” it means a specific period of time and set of data when it bore that name. “Best Related” refers to the entire history of the award and the full dataset.

As a formatting convention, documentary text quoted from other sources will be formatted as a block quote. The source (usually a website) and date accessed (if relevant) will be cited. Such quotations will be reproduced as-is and may not match the editorial conventions of the overall document.

References to various data subsets and data types that are being analyzed will be capitalized (e.g., Finalist, Podcast, Biography). One point of possible confusion is that “Category” (capitalized) will refer to the content type groupings however “category” (uncapitalized) will be used frequently to refer to “award categories” such as Best Related Work, Best Fancast, etc.[2]

The Hugo Awards are a set of annual awards given by the membership of the annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) for people and works relevant to the field of speculative fiction and its fans. The awards were first given in 1953 and have been presented (with a few exceptions) every year since then. The award categories and requirements are established via the constitution of the World Science Fiction Society, which is revised and amended via the annual business meeting held in conjunction with Worldcon. Over the years, there have been many additions, changes, and occasionally removals of categories via revisions to the Constitution.[3]

As an unofficial overview, the current set of awards can be classified in several ways. One classification divides them into “fiction awards,” “awards for other types of works,” and “awards for people.” Another way to categorize them is “professional awards” (for people and works aligned with the business side of the field) versus “fan awards” (for people and works aligned with the fan community). Neither of these ways of categorizing are comprehensive and there is often debate over where a nominee should appear.

A general rule is that a work (as opposed to a person) should only be eligible in one award category. Thus, as new categories have been created to reflect growing areas of activity or interest, works that previously had been eligible in one category might shift to a different category. The Best Related award has regularly been affected by these shifts as it has often been viewed as a catch-all for works that don’t fit well into a more specific category.

Some award categories have fixed requirements for eligibility, such as the word-count requirements for the fiction categories and the restrictions on when the work appeared. Other eligibility factors might be better considered to be based on “vibes.” What counts as a Dramatic Presentation? Who counts as a Fan versus a Professional? What types of media might a Fanzine manifest as? Which category should an opera about the history of fandom fall into?

Hugo Awards are given for work appearing or performed in the previous year. For example, awards given in 2025 were for works published or released, or for activities performed in 2024.[4] References in this study are to the award year, not the publication year, unless otherwise noted.

Choosing the Hugo Award Winners is a two-step process. The first round is crowd-sourced nominations by the eligible members of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), which is to say the membership of the current Worldcon and the immediately previous Worldcon. People may nominate up to a fixed number of items in each award category. Those nominations are then collated and converted into a Finalist list. At the time the Best Related award was first established, selection of Finalists was based on the total number of valid nominations. At a later point in the award’s history, a significant revision was made to how nominations were processed, in order to mitigate the potential effects of slate nominating.[5]

At a certain point, it was also formalized to define a “Long List” of nominees that included all nominees meeting certain criteria: typically, Finalists plus the next 10 most popular nominees, by whatever system is being used at the time.

Nominees that have been identified as Finalists are then vetted for meeting the eligibility requirements of the award category. If a prospective Finalist is determined not to be eligible, then the next runner-up is made a prospective Finalist and vetted. After the Finalists are identified but before they are announced, a reasonable effort is made to contact the Finalists, both to allow a chance to withdraw if desired and to allow for the identification of any previously unknown information regarding eligibility. Nominees below the Finalist threshold are not necessarily vetted for eligibility. Therefore, the Long List represents more of a raw snapshot of what has been nominated, while the Finalists represent nominees that have been verified as eligible. This is of particular interest for Related Work, as the Long List often includes works where eligibility is questionable or uncertain.

The second stage of the award process is for members of the current Worldcon (in the year the award is given) to rank their choices in each award category (including the choice of “no award”). By a calculation process known as “ranked choice” or “instant runoff” voting, the Winner and ordering of the runners up are determined.

This study primarily focuses on the nomination process (though Winners are also analyzed) and will refer to community participants as “nominators” or some more generic term. If the selection of Winners from among the Finalists is being discussed, then the term “voters” may be used to distinguish participation at the two different stages. The people given named credit for creating the work will be referred to as “authors” regardless of whether they functioned as writers or editors and regardless of the amount they contributed to the work.

There are two types of status for a Hugo award. The fixed award categories, as noted above, are established in the WSFS Constitution. For a category to be added, revised, or removed, a change is proposed and debated in the business meeting and must be approved in two consecutive annual business meetings before becoming effective beginning with the subsequent year’s awards. However, each year’s Worldcon committee also has the right and ability to hold one special award category. Nominees, Finalists, and Winners of a special Hugo award have the same status as those of the “constitutional categories” and official lists (such as those at Wikipedia) often make no distinction. Special categories have often been used as trial balloons for proposed new constitutional categories (as happened for Related Work) but the existence of a special category doesn’t guarantee permanent addition. Not all Worldcon committees have chosen to exercise the option to hold a special category.

1.3 Prior Analyses

This is not the first survey and analysis of the Best Related award. Selected others are presented here.

Lew Wolkoff 1986

In the 1986 Worldcon business meeting,[6] Lew Wolkoff presented an analysis of the first 6 years of Best Non-Fiction Book (the initial era of Best Related), in combination with research into prior awards for non-fiction works. The general thrust of his analysis was to criticize a number of Finalists as being only distantly related to the category definition. In particular he called out books combining art with imaginative text, such as After Man or Barlowe’s Guide to Extra Terrestrials, and photography albums of SFF authors. He categorized the Finalists in his data set into 6 groups: fanzine, photography, picture books with an SFF theme, art books, biography (including autobiography), studies of a particular property or author, and works of SFF history or criticism. More details of Wolkoff’s analysis, along with his conclusions, are discussed in the Administrative History section under Minor Rewording. Wolkoff’s categories remain identifiable topics throughout the history of the award, although he combines groupings that this study classified under two separate aspects: Media and Category.

Nicholas Whyte 2021

In 2021, multiple-time Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte posted an analysis of the Winners and Finalists in Best Related up to that date.[7] He noted that in 28 out of 41 years, the Winner had been “a published monograph or essay collection about science fiction and/or fantasy or related themes” and that the other 13 years represented a variety of types of works, with art books being most common (5 Winners).

For the most recent decade of his scope (which fell entirely within the Related Work era omitting only the first year) he categorized the Finalists, identifying the topic for books and the format for other types of works. His assessment was that, during those years, only twice had the Winner been “a book about sf.”[8]

Whyte notes that he considers some Finalists to fit the official scope less well than others, singling out a musical album and suggesting that it aligns better to the awards for fictional works and comparing it to two other items that were collections of short fiction, one that was a Finalist in 2004 and one that was disqualified on the basis of being a work of fiction in 2002.[9] In discussing works whose content is of ambiguous relevance, Whyte confirms (as a multi-year Hugo administrator) that the default principle is “let the nominators decide” and how several of the nominees he would have considered marginal had precedent in previous Finalists of similar format. In contrast, two 2019 nominees (a Video Essay and a Convention Event) that had no format precedent were considered uncontroversially eligible by that year’s administrators.[10] Evidently there was more administrative concern of the nomination of an acceptance speech in 2020, with the opinion that the precedent established by an acceptance speech appearing as a Dramatic Presentation in 2012 should establish that as the appropriate award for such works. This approach was stymied by no one having nominated the 2020 speech under Dramatic Presentation.[11]

There is a longer discussion of the 2021 Finalists, with Whyte noting that 5 of the 6 generated eligibility discussions among the administrators, in all cases concluding that there was precedent and argument for considering them eligible. Switching hats from administrator to voter, Whyte then reiterates his opinion that “scholarly or biographical books or works about sf and fantasy” should win the award[12] while assessing his own choices.

The Hugo Award Study Committee 2022

In 2022, the results of the multi-year assessment by the Hugo Award Study Committee (led by Nicholas Whyte) were reported to the Business Meeting (see the Administrative History section under Subsequent Relevant Discussions) however this report operated at a high level and did not include details of nomination trends.

Doris V. Sutherland 2022

Other people have presented assessments of the award category in specific years—too many to track down in full. One example from Doris V. Sutherland (posted 2022/02/03) analyzing all the nomination data for Best Related in 2021[13] is of interest because it specifically addresses the question “just how much scholarly work is actually being nominated for Best Related Work?” Out of the 16 items in the Long List, Sutherland appears to assess 2 of the Finalists and 7 works overall as meeting the definition of “scholarly work” (possibly 2 short Essays should be added, making it 9 scholarly works). Sutherland is unabashedly partisan in asserting which works should not have been nominated, and assigning blame to certain works for “pushing” worthier items off the ballot and off the Long List. She compares the 9/16 scholarship rate to the 2010 published nominees, which she assesses as 22/23 scholarly works.[14] Her assessment concludes with a suggestion to split Best Related into Long Form and Short Form (as is done for Dramatic Presentation) to allow scholarly books more of a fighting chance.[15]

Summary

No doubt other people have done reviews of a particular year’s results, but no prior study has been identified that addressed the full history of Best Related and covered the Long List nomination data. Further, prior studies have generally emerged from a critique of how people thought the award category ought to be structured. The intent of the present study is to be descriptive and explanatory (to the extent possible) and to include all known nomination data, as well as to distinguish trends in format and content.

But these critiques, and other similar ones not quoted here, provide an interesting baseline for a “conservative” or “traditional” take on the appropriate scope of the category. (The term “traditional” will be used later in this study, to avoid political implications of the term “conservative.”) However, note that some types of “non-traditional” work were being nominated very early in the lifetime of the category. While the descriptions of traditional versus non-traditional content in these critiques don’t align exactly with the Categories used in this study, we can identify the following as falling in the traditional group: Art (at least when involving studies of artists and their work), Autobiography and Biography, Criticism and Essays (distinguished in this study based on whether the subject is a specific work or a general topic), History and Reference works (of SFF subjects). The traditional view also prefers Books over other formats, though it’s less clear whether the Article/Blog format is specifically dispreferred. In the analysis of Categories when grouped into Supercategories, the Associated group includes many of the types of subject matter that is called out as non-traditional.

(Segment II will cover Part 2 Methodology, Section 2.1 Administrative History.)

[1]. See: thehugoawards.org, accessed 2025/10/05.

[2]. This will inevitably give an 18th century air to the text. Capitalization of “book” may be inconsistent as the distinction between Book-as-format and book-as-ordinary reference can be ambiguous at times.

[3]. In the earliest years of the Hugo Awards, the process for establishing award categories was not as formal. However, as the Best Related category was first held in 1980, those issues are only tangentially relevant.

[4]. Occasionally special allowances are made for extended eligibility due to limited release or availability. This has affected a few Related Work nominees and is discussed in the section on Data and Eligibility under Eligibility Notes.

[5]. See the Administrative History section under Changes to the Nomination Process.

[6]. See: https://www.wsfs.org/rules-of-the-world-science-fiction-society/archive-... accessed 2025/08/25.

[7]. See: https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-hugo-for-best-related-work-including... accessed 2025/06/25.

[8]. Although the analysis was for the 11 years from 2011-2021, the statement about how often Books had won covered only 2012-2021, excluding one other Book Winner.

[9]. The former is classified in this study as an Art+Fiction Book, similar to the type that Wolkoff called out in his analysis, while the latter was solely an anthology of short Fiction.

[10]. Although the 2019 Video was the first Finalist in that format, three prior Video works had appeared on the Long List, so the inclusion of this format had been in the minds of nominators for some time. In contrast, the 2019 Convention Event was the first appearance of a work of that type or format in the Long List.

[11]. Another Speech appeared on the Long List in 2018, but as Whyte is only analyzing Finalists this is not mentioned.

[12]. Personal Note: In discussing several of the 2021 Finalists, Whyte opines “One year’s award should not really go to the previous year’s fights, even to the people on the right side of the argument.” Despite my own Finalist status in 2025 being due to exactly this sort of work, I wholeheartedly agree with him and was not at all disappointed when neither of the 2025 works addressing a “previous year’s fights” won the category.

[13]. See: https://dorisvsutherland.com/2022/02/03/the-anatomy-of-the-best-related-... accessed 2026/01/13.

[14]. There are two issues with this comparison, pushing the conclusion in different directions. The published 2010 list is not the standard Long List of Finalists plus the next 10 runners up, which would have been 16/16 scholarly works. However, 2010 was the first year of the Related Work era, and nominators had not yet begun to seriously explore the possibilities of the expanded category scope. It wasn’t until 2014 that non-Book works began to appear on the Long List in significant numbers and diversity of format.

[15]. It isn’t entirely clear what criteria she’s using for this division as she puts 2 Events and a Video into Long Form and 2 Websites into Short Form.

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Mary Read's Narrative

Sunday, March 15, 2026 - 09:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

Because the LHMP entries aren't set up to include images (I could have sworn they were, but I'm not seeing the controls currently), in addition to including a link to the Wikimedia Commons file for the engraving of Read and Bonny, I'm including it here.

Engraving of Anne Bonny and Mary Read from the General History of the Pirates

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LHMP #547d Johnson 1724 A General History of the Pyrates Part 4

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A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Part 4: The General History—Mary Read

The LIFE of MARY READ,

NOW we are to begin a History full of surprizing Turns and Adventures; I mean, that of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn, which were the true Names of these two Pyrates; the odd Incidents of their rambling Lives are such, that some may be tempted to think the whole Story no better than a Novel or Romance; but since it is supported by many thousand Witnesses, I mean the People of Jamaica, who were present at their Tryals, and heard the Story of their Lives, upon the first discovery of their Sex; the Truth of it can be no more contested, than that there were such Men in the World, as Roberts and Blackbeard, who were Pyrates.

[See accompanying blog post for image or use link.]

Ann Bonny and Mary Read convicted of Piracy Nov. 28th. 1720 at a Court of Vice Admiralty held at St. Jago de la Vega in the Island of Jamaica.

Mary Read was born in England, her Mother was married young, to a Man who used the Sea, who going a Voyage soon after their Marriage, left her with Child, which Child proved to be a Boy. As to the Husband, whether he was cast away, or died in the Voyage, Mary Read could not tell; but however, he never returned more; nevertheless, the Mother, who was young and airy, met with an Accident, which has often happened to Women who are young, and do not take a great deal of Care; which was, she soon proved with Child again, without a Husband to Father it, but how, or by whom, none but her self could tell, for she carried a pretty good Reputation among her Neighbours. Finding her Burthen grow, in order to conceal her Shame, she takes a formal Leave of her Husband’s Relations, giving out, that she went to live with some Friends of her own, in the Country: Accordingly she went away, and carried with her her young Son, at this Time, not a Year old: Soon after her Departure her Son died, but Providence in Return, was pleased to give her a Girl in his Room, of which she was safely delivered, in her Retreat, and this was our Mary Read.

Here the Mother liv’d three or four Years, till what Money she had was almost gone; then she thought of returning to London, and considering that her Husband’s Mother was in some Circumstances, she did not doubt but to prevail upon her, to provide for the Child, if she could but pass it upon her for the same, but the changing a Girl into a Boy, seem’d a difficult Piece of Work, and how to deceive an experienced old Woman, in such a Point, was altogether as impossible; however, she ventured to dress it up as a Boy, brought it to Town, and presented it to her Mother in Law, as her Husband’s Son; the old Woman would have taken it, to have bred it up, but the Mother pretended it would break her Heart, to part with it; so it was agreed betwixt them, that the Child should live with the Mother, and the supposed Grandmother should allow a Crown a Week for it’s Maintainance.

Thus the Mother gained her Point, she bred up her Daughter as a Boy, and when she grew up to some Sense, she thought proper to let her into the Secret of her Birth, to induce her to conceal her Sex. It happen’d that the Grandmother died, by which Means the Subsistance that came from that Quarter, ceased, and they were more and more reduced in their Circumstances; wherefore she was obliged to put her Daughter out, to wait on a French Lady, as a Foot-boy, being now thirteen Years of Age: Here she did not live long, for growing bold and strong, and having also a roving Mind, she entered her self on Board a Man of War, where she served some Time, then quitted it, went over into Flanders, and carried Arms in a Regiment of Foot, as a Cadet; and tho’ upon all Actions, she behaved herself with a great deal of Bravery, yet she could not get a Commission, they being generally bought and sold; therefore she quitted the Service, and took on in a Regiment of Horse; she behaved so well in several Engagements, that she got the Esteem of all her Officers; but her Comrade who was a Fleming, happening to be a handsome young Fellow, she falls in Love with him, and from that Time, grew a little more negligent in her Duty, so that, it seems, Mars and Venus could not be served at the same Time; her Arms and Accoutrements which were always kept in the best Order, were quite neglected: ’tis true, when her Comrade was ordered out upon a Party, she used to go without being commanded, and frequently run herself into Danger, where she had no Business, only to be near him; the rest of the Troopers little suspecting the secret Cause which moved her to this Behaviour, fancied her to be mad, and her Comrade himself could not account for this strange Alteration in her, but Love is ingenious, and as they lay in the same Tent, and were constantly together, she found a Way of letting him discover her Sex, without appearing that it was done with Design.

He was much surprized at what he found out, and not a little pleased, taking it for granted, that he should have a Mistress solely to himself, which is an unusual Thing in a Camp, since there is scarce one of those Campaign Ladies, that is ever true to a Troop or Company; so that he thought of nothing but gratifying his Passions with very little Ceremony; but he found himself strangely mistaken, for she proved very reserved and modest, and resisted all his Temptations, and at the same Time was so obliging and insinuating in her Carriage, that she quite changed his Purpose, so far from thinking of making her his Mistress, he now courted her for a Wife.

This was the utmost Wish of her Heart, in short, they exchanged Promises, and when the Campaign was over, and the Regiment marched into Winter Quarters, they bought Woman’s Apparel for her, with such Money as they could make up betwixt them, and were publickly married.

The Story of two Troopers marrying each other, made a great Noise, so that several Officers were drawn by Curiosity to assist at the Ceremony, and they agreed among themselves that every one of them should make a small Present to the Bride, towards House-keeping, in Consideration of her having been their fellow Soldier. Thus being set up, they seemed to have a Desire of quitting the Service, and settling in the World; the Adventure of their Love and Marriage had gained them so much Favour, that they easily obtained their Discharge, and they immediately set up an Eating House or Ordinary, which was the Sign of the Three Horse-Shoes, near the Castle of Breda, where they soon run into a good Trade, a great many Officers eating with them constantly.

But this Happiness lasted not long, for the Husband soon died, and the Peace of Reswick being concluded, there was no Resort of Officers to Breda, as usual; so that the Widow having little or no Trade, was forced to give up Housekeeping, and her Substance being by Degrees quite spent, she again assumes her Man’s Apparel, and going into Holland, there takes on in a Regiment of Foot, quarter’d in one of the Frontier Towns: Here she did not remain long, there was no likelihood of Preferment in Time of Peace, therefore she took a Resolution of seeking her Fortune another Way; and withdrawing from the Regiment, ships herself on Board of a Vessel bound for the West-Indies.

It happen’d this Ship was taken by English Pyrates, and Mary Read was the only English Person on Board, they kept her amongst them, and having plundered the Ship, let it go again; after following this Trade for some Time, the King’s Proclamation came out, and was publish’d in all Parts of the West-Indies, for pardoning such Pyrates, who should voluntarily surrender themselves by a certain Day therein mentioned. The Crew of Mary Read took the Benefit of this Proclamation, and having surrender’d, liv’d quietly on Shore; but Money beginning to grow short, and hearing that Captain Woods Rogers, Governor of the Island of Providence, was fitting out some Privateers to cruise against the Spaniards, she with several others embark’d for that Island, in order to go upon the privateering Account, being resolved to make her Fortune one way or other.

These Privateers were no sooner sail’d out, but the Crews of some of them, who had been pardoned, rose against their Commanders, and turned themselves to their old Trade: In this Number was Mary Read. It is true, she often declared, that the Life of a Pyrate was what she always abhor’d, and went into it only upon Compulsion, both this Time, and before, intending to quit it, whenever a fair Opportunity should offer it self; yet some of the Evidence against her, upon her Tryal, who were forced Men, and had sailed with her, deposed upon Oath, that in Times of Action, no Person amongst them were more resolute, or ready to Board or undertake any Thing that was hazardous, as she and Anne Bonny; and particularly at the Time they were attack’d and taken, when they came to close Quarters, none kept the Deck except Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and one more; upon which, she, Mary Read, called to those under Deck, to come up and fight like Men, and finding they did not stir, fired her Arms down the Hold amongst them, killing one, and wounding others.

This was part of the Evidence against her, which she denied; which, whether true or no, thus much is certain, that she did not want Bravery, nor indeed was she less remarkable for her Modesty, according to her Notions of Virtue: Her Sex was not so much as suspected by any Person on Board, till Anne Bonny, who was not altogether so reserved in point of Chastity, took a particular liking to her; in short, Anne Bonny took her for a handsome young Fellow, and for some Reasons best known to herself, first discovered her Sex to Mary Read; Mary Read knowing what she would be at, and being very sensible of her own Incapacity that Way, was forced to come to a right Understanding with her, and so to the great Disappointment of Anne Bonny, she let her know she was a Woman also; but this Intimacy so disturb’d Captain Rackam, who was the Lover and Gallant of Anne Bonny, that he grew furiously jealous, so that he told Anne Bonny, he would cut her new Lover’s Throat, therefore, to quiet him, she let him into the Secret also.

Captain Rackam, (as he was enjoined,) kept the Thing a Secret from all the Ship’s Company, yet, notwithstanding all her Cunning and Reserve, Love found her out in this Disguise, and hinder’d her from forgetting her Sex. In their Cruize they took a great Number of Ships belonging to Jamaica, and other Parts of the West-Indies, bound to and from England; and when ever they meet any good Artist, or other Person that might be of any great Use to their Company, if he was not willing to enter, it was their Custom to keep him by Force. Among these was a young Fellow of a most engageing Behaviour, or, at least, he was so in the Eyes of Mary Read, who became so smitten with his Person and Address, that she could neither rest, Night or Day; but as there is nothing more ingenious than Love, it was no hard Matter for her, who had before been practiced in these Wiles, to find a Way to let him discover her Sex: She first insinuated her self into his liking, by talking against the Life of a Pyrate, which he was altogether averse to, so they became Mess-Mates and strict Companions: When she found he had a Friendship for her, as a Man, she suffered the Discovery to be made, by carelesly shewing her Breasts, which were very White.

The young Fellow, who was made of Flesh and Blood, had his Curiosity and Desire so rais’d by this Sight, that he never ceased importuning her, till she confessed what she was. Now begins the Scene of Love; as he had a Liking and Esteem for her, under her supposed Character, it was now turn’d into Fondness and Desire; her Passion was no less violent than his, and perhaps she express’d it, by one of the most generous Actions that ever Love inspired. It happened this young Fellow had a Quarrel with one of the Pyrates, and their Ship then lying at an Anchor, near one of the Islands, they had appointed to go ashore and fight, according to the Custom of the Pyrates: Mary Read, was to the last Degree uneasy and anxious, for the Fate of her Lover; she would not have had him refuse the Challenge, because, she could not bear the Thoughts of his being branded with Cowardise; on the other Side, she dreaded the Event, and apprehended the Fellow might be too hard for him: When Love once enters into the Breast of one who has any Sparks of Generosity, it stirs the Heart up to the most noble Actions; in this Dilemma, she shew’d, that she fear’d more for his Life than she did for her own; for she took a Resolution of quarreling with this Fellow her self, and having challenged him ashore, she appointed the Time two Hours sooner than that when he was to meet her Lover, where she fought him at Sword and Pistol, and killed him upon the Spot.

It is true, she had fought before, when she had been insulted by some of those Fellows, but now it was altogether in her Lover’s Cause, she stood as it were betwixt him and Death, as if she could not live without him. If he had no regard for her before, this Action would have bound him to her for ever; but there was no Occasion for Ties or Obligations, his Inclination towards her was sufficient; in fine, they applied their Troth to each other, which Mary Read said, she look’d upon to be as good a Marriage, in Conscience, as if it had been done by a Minister in Church; and to this was owing her great Belly, which she pleaded to save her Life.

She declared she had never committed Adultery or Fornication with any Man, she commended the Justice of the Court, before which she was tried, for distinguishing the Nature of their Crimes; her Husband, as she call’d him, with several others, being acquitted; and being ask’d, who he was? she would not tell, but, said he was an honest Man, and had no Inclination to such Practices, and that they had both resolved to leave the Pyrates the first Opportunity, and apply themselves to some honest Livelyhood.

It is no doubt, but many had Compassion for her, yet the Court could not avoid finding her Guilty; for among other Things, one of the Evidences against her, deposed, that being taken by Rackam, and detain’d some Time on Board, he fell accidentally into Discourse with Mary Read, whom he taking for a young Man, ask’d her, what Pleasure she could have in being concerned in such Enterprizes, where her Life was continually in Danger, by Fire or Sword; and not only so, but she must be sure of dying an ignominious Death, if she should be taken alive?—She answer’d, that as to hanging, she thought it no great Hardship, for, were it not for that, every cowardly Fellow would turn Pyrate, and so infest the Seas, that Men of Courage must starve:— That if it was put to the Choice of the Pyrates, they would not have the punishment less than Death, the Fear of which, kept some dastardly Rogues honest; that many of those who are now cheating the Widows and Orphans, and oppressing their poor Neighbours, who have no Money to obtain Justice, would then rob at Sea, and the Ocean would be crowded with Rogues, like the Land, and no Merchant would venture out; so that the Trade, in a little Time, would not be worth following.

Being found quick with Child, as has been observed, her Execution was respited, and it is possible she would have found Favour, but she was seiz’d with a violent Fever, soon after her Tryal, of which she died in Prison.

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If a Text Says "You're Not Going to Believe This" Don't

Thursday, March 12, 2026 - 13:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

One of the things I found fascinating about the narratives about Bonny and Read in the General History is the way it plays to specific audience expectations and reactions. Now I'm wondering if anyone has specifically studied it in the context of narrative conventions around "historical fictions" of the 18th century. That is, texts that are overtly fictional (as opposed to overtly claiming to be "true") but presented in the form of a reported narrative or even a first-person account.

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LHMP #547c Johnson 1724 A General History of the Pyrates Part 3

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A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Part 3: The General History – Introduction

The General History of the Pirates

And now we’re ready to see what the General History says about Bonny and Read, three years after these events. The text I have is the second edition. My understanding is that the first edition also contained the material on Bonny and Read in the main text, but that only the appendices were new to the second edition.

In this section, I’ll present the relevant text from the General History, followed by a tentative timeline summary of each biography (if relevant), then an analysis of the contents and its likely relationship to reality. There are several questions to keep in mind when reading this material. If we assume the backstories were factual, how would Johnson have obtained this information? This is especially the case with regard to internal thoughts and motivations of people who are long dead at the time of Bonny and Read’s trials. Secondly, how does the described flirtation scenario align with the eyewitness accounts in the trial? How would Johnson know about this supposed scenario, given that it does not appear in the trial documents and that all members of Rackham’s crew had been executed? (Although we must remember that Anne Bonny’s fate is not recorded in any official documents.)

Like the newspaper accounts and the published trial records, the title of the General History highlights the inclusion of Bonny and Read in a way that makes clear they are assumed to be a major topic of interest to potential readers. Further Johnson admits that their narratives may strike the reader as fantastic, although the framing of histories about non-normative women are commonly labeled as sensational, not only to excite interest, but to provide a buffer between such women and normative expectations.

The introductory section of the General History provides exactly this type of framing.

“As to the Lives of our two female Pyrates, we must confess they may appear a little Extravagant, yet they are never the less true for seeming so, but as they were publickly try’d for their Pyracies, there are living Witnesses enough to justify what we have laid down concerning them; it is certain, we have produced some Particulars which were not so publickly known, the Reason is, we were more inquisitive into the Circumstances of their past Lives, than other People, who had no other Design, than that of gratifying their own private Curiosity: If there are some Incidents and Turns in their Stories, which may give them a little the Air of a Novel, they are not invented or contrived for that Purpose, it is a Kind of Reading this Author is but little acquainted with, but as he himself was exceedingly diverted with them, when they were related to him, he thought they might have the same Effect upon the Reader.”

Despite the author’s reference to “living witnesses,” certain events on shipboard no longer had living witnesses (with the hypothetical possible exception of Anne Bonny, but one would expect the Johnson to specifically note if he’d been able to interview her). Supposed events from the childhood of the two also cast doubt on the “living witnesses” claim. And if the theory that “Captain Johnson” was Daniel Defoe, then his claim to be “little acquainted with” novels is laughably false, as he published 8 novels between 1719 and 1724. (I haven’t read up on the scholarship around the work’s authorship.)

The material on Bonney and Read are included in the chapter on Rackham, rather than having their own chapters, but are set off with their own headings. Each of the women is given a longer text than that given to Rackham himself. (The section on Rackham doesn’t have any relevant information that isn’t duplicated in the Bonny and Read sections.)

The table of contents includes a brief summary of each chapter’s material. For Read and Bonney these table-of-contents summaries read as follows:

“The LIFE of MARY READ.

“MARY Read’s Birth, 157. Reasons for dressing her in Breeches, 158. Waits upon a Lady; goes into the Army, 159. Her Behaviour in several Engagements, ib. She falls in Love with her Comrade, ib. Her Sex discovered; the two Troopers married, 160. Settles at Breda, ib. Her Husband dies, she reassumes the Breeches, ib. Goes to Holland. To the West-Indies, 161. Turns Pyrate. Anne Bonny, another Pyrate, falls in Love with her, 162. Her Adventures to 165.

“The LIFE of ANNE BONNY.

“ANNE Bonny born a Bastard, 166. Her Mother’s Intrigues strangely discover’d, 167. Her Father lies with his own Wife, by mistake, 169. She proves with Child; the Husband jealous, 170. He separates from his Wife; lives with Anne Bonny’s Mother, 171. Anne Bonny put into Breeches for a Disguise, how discovered, ib. The Father becomes poor. Goes to Carolina, 172. Improves his Fortune. Anne Bonny marries against his Consent. Her fierce Temper, ib. Goes to Providence with her Husband, ib. Enticed to Sea in Men’s Cloaths, by Rackam the Pyrate, 173. Reproaches Rackam with Cowardice at his Execution, ib.”

At the end of the chapter on Rackham, the following is noted. After which the sections on the two women follow.

“Two other Pyrates were try’d that belonged to Rackam’s Crew, and being convicted, were brought up, and asked if either of them had any Thing to say why Sentence of Death should not pass upon them, in like Manner as had been done to all the rest; and both of them pleaded their Bellies, being quick with Child, and pray’d that Execution might be stay’d, whereupon the Court passed Sentence, as in Cases of Pyracy, but ordered them back, till a proper Jury should be appointed to enquire into the Matter.”

The preceding paragraph follows very closely the facts in the trial record: that the two women were tried separately, that they claimed pregnancy after their sentencing, and that their executions were stayed pending further investigation. We can surmise that this material was taken directly from those trial records, but at the same time it provides no additional details not present in the legal records, and indeed has less information, given that the women’s names are not mentioned.

(It's curious that the published trial records make no mention of any follow-up on the pregnancy claims. Based on my estimate the trial records were published about 5 months after the date of Bonny and Read’s trial. Any assessment would presumably have taken place well within that period. This isn’t really a comment on the General History, but it speaks to possible sources of information on events after the trial.)

Other chapters in the book don’t delve into the past lives and backgrounds of the pirates under discussion, but rather focus on ship movements and attacks. So the women’s sections are markedly different in this respect. Many of the men’s stories include extensive details of interactions and reported conversations that are attributed to depositions in court, whereas no sources are cited for the extensive details of Read’s and Bonney’s lives. (We can see these sorts of detailed reported speech in the court depositions quoted above.) In contrast, the narrative style of the following material aligns more with news accounts of “criminal histories” and cross-dressing narratives.

As some general historical background: Nassau in New Providence, Bahamas became a haven for pirates in the first decade of the 18th century, due to the lack of any governmental or military presence. Several actions were taken to begin to redress this situation. In September 1717 a pardon was offered for any pirates willing to give up piracy. (The “King’s Pardon” mentioned in the text.) The requirement was that they surrender within the following year, however either this offer was repeated at other times or there was a belief that it was still available later, based on references in the General History. In 1718, Woodes Rogers was sent by King George I to be Governor of New Providence. Late in 1718, the governor recruited some former pirates to turn privateer against Spanish colonies. There are some references in the General History that seem to refer to offers of this type. These events and dates correspond to some actions related in the narratives, but the exact correspondence is sometimes ambiguous.

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The Pop Culture Background of Cross-Dressing Sailors

Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 09:30

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

Continuing our series about Anne Bonny and Mary Read, this installment sorts out conflicting reports of Rackham's crew and discusses the existing popular literature about women cross-dressing in combat or at sea that would have been available as a model for the fictionalization of Bonny and Read's lives.

Yesterday I recorded an extensive interview about the "afterlife" of Bonny and Read that will be included in the upcoming pocast that accompanies this series.

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LHMP #547b Johnson 1724 A General History of the Pyrates Part 2

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Publication summary:

A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Publication summary:

A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Part 2: Initial Analysis, Timeline, and Context

Sorting Out Rackham’s Crew

Given the wide variety of numbers given for Rackham’s crew, it might be useful to digress a moment and try to sort things out.

The American Weekly Mercury lists the largest crew size at 26, while the number is given as 14 in The Daily Post, The Boston Gazette (which specified 12 men and 2 women in reporting prior to the capture), and The London Journal, with the Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica reporting 18. Some of the confusion may be sorted out by a set of men who had been on Rackham’s ship when it was taken but claimed they had only boarded to receive hospitality and then pressed into helping when the ship was attacked.

The official trial record lists a total of 9 men (including Rackham) in the first trial. This includes 5 names listed in the initial (incomplete) Boston Gazette report of Rackham’s crew being declared pirates, but one name that appears in the Boston Gazette list never appears in the trial records. It’s possible that he died prior to trial. The second trial lists 2 men and a comparison of the one charge against them to the list of charges against the “Rackham 9” indicates that they were part of the crew for at least that one incident. Based on other evidence, they don’t appear to have been present on Rackham’s ship at the time of capture.

Bonny and Read were tried separately in a third trial.

In a fourth trial, 9 named men were tried in the group who claimed they were only visiting on the ship (but were condemned anyway). So all together, this comes to 23 people, which doesn’t match any of the reports unless the Boston Gazette’s “12 men and 2 women” is interpreted either as “12 crew and 2 female civilian captives” (two women were kidnapped and held on 9/4/1720, and might possibly still have been on board on 10/31/1720 when Rackham was captured) or as including the 2 men from the second trial, with Bonny and Read being the “2 women.”

The news report form S. Jago de la Vega gives 11 names, including the 9 men from the first trial and the 2 from the second trial. The names listed in the General History precisely match the official trial report of the “Rackham 9,” Bonny and Read, and the “Just Visiting 9” and were presumably taken directly from that document, but do not include the 2 men from the second trial.

So in terms of named individuals said to be on Rackham’s ship when taken (including Rackham) we have 20 hands including Read and Bonny. The two presumed crew not present at the time of capture get us to 22. If the two kidnapped women and held were still on board then we’re up to 24, but that still doesn’t get us to the American Weekly Mercury’s 26. Taking the evidence all together, I’m inclined to trust the combination of the trial records and the initial Boston Gazette partial list and conclude that Rackham’s core crew at the time of capture consisted of him, 9 additional men, Bonny, and Read, with one of the men dying unreported before trial. The reports of 14 crew include the two from the second trial. Other numbers are due to the addition of the “just visiting” men and confusion with separate captures of other crews.

An Initial Timeline

At this point, we can construct a timeline of events based on the news reports and official documents. Years will be converted to Gregorian to avoid confusion.

9/1/1720 Bonny and Read “agreed with” Rackham and others to commit piracy
9/3-4/1720 The first two acts of piracy cited in the trial
9/5/1720 Rackham and crew (including Bonny and Read) officially proclaimed to be pirates
10/1-20/1720 Multiple acts of piracy cited in the trial
10/30/1720 Rackham’s ship and crew captured, including Bonny and Read
11/16/1720 Trials of Rackham’s crew begin
11/28/1720 Trial of Bonny and Read, they are found guilty and sentenced
4/28/1721 Death of “Mary Read Pirate” recorded
May 1721 Approximate date when the detailed trial records are published. The ultimate fate of Bonny and Read is not included.
6/1/1721 Governor Rogers returns to England. He is later approached to be a source for the General History.
9/1/1721 The detailed publication of the trials is available in England with the results reported in newspapers.
Approximately March 1724 the first edition of the General History is published.

One detail to take note of is the very short timeline between when Rackham and crew were officially proclaimed to be pirates and the date when they were captured: a scant two months. As we’ll see, the General History gives them a multi-year history of piracy prior to this date. (It sets Rackham’s elevation to captain in November 1718.) Governor Woodes Rogers arrived in the Bahamas in July 1718 with an assignment to begin anti-piracy activities. It may well be that it took a while for Rogers to get organized enough to begin identifying specific pirates by name, but another possible interpretation is that Rackham and crew were simply inept and quickly taken out of commission. But I get ahead of myself.

Witness Descriptions of Bonny and Read

The image of Bonny and Read dressed in male clothing comes from the eyewitness reports given during their trial. These reports had two purposes: to clearly identify Bonny and Read as having been present during various attacks, and to establish that they were active and willing participants.

To reiterate, Dorothy Thomas related: “That the Two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board the said Sloop, and wore Mens Jackets, and long Trouzers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads; and that each of them had a Machet and Pistol in their Hands, and cursed and swore at the Men, to murther the Deponent [i.e., Thomas]; and that they should kill her, to prevent her coming against them; and the Deponent further said, That the Reason of her knowing and believing them to be Women then was, by the largeness of their Breasts.”

John Besneck and Peter Cornelian, who evidently were present for several of the Rackham crew’s assaults, reported similarly: “That the Two Women…were very active on Board, and willing to do any Thing; That Ann Bonny, one of the Prisoners at the Bar, handed Gun-powder to the Men, That when they saw any Vessel, gave Chase, or Attacked, they wore Men’s Cloaths; and, at other Times, they wore Women’s Cloaths; That they did not seem to be kept, or detain’d by Force, but of their own Free-Will and Consent.”

Thomas Dillon didn’t mention anything about their clothing, but only spoke to their demeanor, saying: “That Ann Bonny, one of the Prisoners at the Bar, had a Gun in her Hand, That they were both very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do any Thing on Board.”

These accounts were condensed significantly in news reports. The Daily Courant reported: “Mary Read and Sarah [sic] Bonny…were both in Mens Habit, and fought desperately.” While The Daily Journal had a similarly brief note of: “Mary Road [sic] and Anne Bonney…both of them wore Seamens Habits, were in Arms, fought desperately, and were more unmerciful than any of the Crew.”

Pay attention in particular to Besneck and Cornelian’s testimony, which rather puts the lie to the idea that Bonny and Read were disguising their gender to any degree.

Passing Women in Military and Navel Narratives

The eyewitness account of Bonny and Read’s cross-dressing differs from the classic female cross-dressing narratives of the 18th century, as discussed in works like Dekker and van de Pol (The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe) or Dianne Dugaw’s Warrior Women and Popular Balladry: 1650-1850. The two women are described as wearing male clothing for combat, but female clothing at other times, while making no serious effort to conceal their physiological sex. There is no mention of them using male aliases. In contrast, the back-stories provided for them in the General History align much more strongly with both real-life and literary depictions of passing women of the time. So let’s explore the structure of those other narratives before moving on to the General History accounts.

Especially in the context of cross-dressing as a soldier or sailor, passing narratives have many common elements while also displaying significant variety. A woman displaced from her birthplace obtains male clothing, adopts a male name, and joins the army or signs on as a sailor. She may be unmasked relatively soon or may not be unmasked until after death, or any time in between. Often she is introduced to the idea of cross-dressing by another woman who has done so successfully. She may flirt with or even marry a woman, either to support her disguise or from personal desire. Sometimes a female partner has urged her to cross-dress so that they may marry. If her disguise is discovered, it is often because she encounters someone who recognizes her from her earlier life. In the real-life cases (as opposed to the literary ones) such women appear to have been able to perform the work expected of a man (or of an adolescent boy) with no problem. While passing women took on all manner of occupations, one study found that 90% were either soldiers or sailors at some point, likely due to the low bar for admission to these professions.

Narratives of passing women were part of popular culture, both treated as exceptional heroines (especially if a patriotic motive could be attributed to them) and later as transgressive “freaks.” These fictional (and fictionalized) women were often given the motive of cross-dressing to join or follow (or pursue) a male partner. Same-sex encounters might be included in the narrative as the humorous result of the disguise. When considering the influences of pre-existing popular culture on the biographies of Bonny and Read presented in the General History, we might take note of the following published examples that would have been in circulation prior to 1720. (I’m omitting people known from historic records whose stories were not published in general circulation at the time.)

The broadside ballad “The Merchant’s Daughter of Bristoll” published in 1595 describes a woman disguised as a boy to become a sailor.
At a similar era, various ballads about “Mary Ambree” were popular enough to be quoted or referenced in other works and became one of the most popular English ballads of the 17th century. Mary Ambree put on male military garb to fight at Ghent, allegedly to avenge her slain (male) lover.
In fact, there was an entire genre of broadside ballads about cross-dressing women becoming soldiers or sailors in the 17th century. Diane Dugaw lists dozens in this era, such as an English one titled The Female Warrior, and a Dutch one published in 1690 about Trijn Jurriaens.
English theater of the 17th century was fond of the motif of a woman in male disguise provoking a romantic encounter with a woman, as discussed in extensive detail in Denise A. Walen’s Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. One specific example that includes a military motif is Margaret Cavendish’s Love’s Adventures.
The story of Catalina de Erauso was published in a variety of versions and genres in Spanish in the 17th century, detailing her cross-dressed military career in the Americas and including several flirtatious encounters with women.
Both French and Dutch versions of a biography of Christine de Meyrak, who served in the French army, were published in the later 17th century.
A possibly fictionalized biography of Geneviève Prémoy, who served in the French army in the 1670s and 1680s was published in 1703.
A possibly fictionalized biography (in Dutch) was published in 1706 detailing the cross-dressed military career of Willempja Gerrits as a soldier and sailor in the 1660s and 1670s.
Christian Davies disguised herself as a man to seek her husband, who was serving in the army in Holland in the 1690s. She continued serving in disguise (after ditching the unfaithful husband) until 1706 when she was wounded and her sex was discovered. Although her life story was not published until after our key date, she was presented to the queen in 1712 and was known as a public celebrity.

The point of these examples is to demonstrate that there was an existing pop culture genre of “the cross-dressed woman who becomes a soldier or sailor, often in the context of a relationship with a man, but who may have romantic encounters with women as a result of the disguise.” This was the context in which the narratives about Anne Bonny and Mary Read were written.

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 337 - On the Shelf for March 2026

Saturday, March 7, 2026 - 14:58

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 337 - On the Shelf for March 2026 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2025/03/07)

Welcome to On the Shelf for March 2026.

I don’t know about where you are, but we’ve hit shorts and t-shirt weather in my town. The daffodils are blooming and the only white flakes falling from the sky are the petals from my plum tree. There’s a task to every season and right now that task is trying to keep ahead of the pruning and weeding while the ground is still damp. I hope you never get tired of hearing about my garden, because there’s always something beautiful to talk about.

Speaking of beautiful things, do you like Anne Lister and Gentleman Jack? Do you like ballet? It turns out the Northern Ballet Company in the UK is premiering a ballet based on the show Gentleman Jack. In fact the debut performance is the day this episode comes out. It’s showing at various venues in England through September. See the links in the show notes and many thanks to Lauri Wilson who pointed me to it.

Although it’ll be a couple months before the next fiction episode, I have every confidence that this year I really will get ahead of the game and have the stories all recorded and ready to go far in advance. Really. I swear. This time for sure.

Beyond that, I’m still plugging away at the book version of the Project and, as always, reading as many articles as I can fit into my head.

Publications on the Blog

Since last month, I blogged about two more journal articles on the topic of 17th century pornography. Manuela Mourão’s “The representation of female desire in early modern pornographic texts, 1660-1745” was only of marginal interest. But Sarah Toulalan’s. “Extraordinary Satisfactions: Lesbian Visibility in Seventeenth-Century Pornography in England” had some really interesting points about how the representation of lesbian sexuality found in pornographic texts is quite different from that described in legal and medical literature. And though we might question how close it comes to the experiences of actual women, it points out that attitudes and understandings were not monolithic.

On a slightly less serious side, I’ve just started posting an 8-part series about 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, centering around the mostly-fictional portrayals of them in Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates. Johnson himself is also most probably fictional—being a pen name quite possibly for novelist Daniel Defoe. My series lays out what the more factual sources say about Bonny and Read then delves into why we can be quite certain that the General History is largely invention, and what the sources for that invention might be. I’ll be doing a companion podcast with a much shorter summary of the material and a special guest.

Book Shopping!

Book shopping has been slim this month. I picked up Anne Fausto Sterling’s Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, of which only one chapter is relevant to historic topics. There were a couple other titles I jotted down for library research but couldn’t quite justify buying at the available price. Now that I’m retired, I have to be a bit more careful about shelling out a hundred bucks for a book I haven’t actually seen yet.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

Fortunately, fiction is much more affordable, so let’s look at some of the recent lesbian and sapphic historical releases. As is my current practice, this is a curated list of books that have been reviewed for characteristics that suggest AI production. My filtering method isn’t perfect. I may have both false positives and false negatives, but I will not knowingly promote a book created using AI.

We start off with a January book that only just got on my radar. Rattlesridge by Mina Rose from IsoMeridian is a Western that says it’s “inspired by the energy of Chappell Roan’s “The Giver.””

What happens when your captor makes your heart race...for all the wrong reasons?

Betsy should be terrified, not getting weak in the knees over the leader of one of the most wanted gangs in the West. But Cricket isn’t just trouble - she’s temptation, and the bride-to-be of Rattlesridge’s much-loved sheriff is starting to think crime might just be her type.

There are a couple of February books just showing up.

The Ink Between Us by Chiara Bellini from Liminal Manifold is a time-slip story in which the protagonist knows just a bit too much for comfort about when she lands.

Dr. Sophia Moretti has spent her life observing the past from behind white archival gloves. Denied tenure and drifting through a lonely modern life, she has nothing to lose when she touches an antique printing press in a Roman archive—and the centuries dissolve beneath her fingertips.

She wakes up in 1748. The air smells of woodsmoke and roasting chestnuts. The noise of the Via della Lungaretta is deafening. And standing at the helm of the press is Giulia Proietti—a widow, a master printer, and the most terrifyingly beautiful woman Sophia has ever seen.

Sophia isn't just a tourist in this century. She finds a home among the ink-stained women of the Proietti shop, forging a life of labor, laughter, and a slow-burn love that defies the laws of physics. But Sophia has a curse: she knows the footnotes. She knows that on March 14, 1751, the Proietti Print Shop is erased from history. The fire brigade report will list "total conflagration" and they will recover four bodies.

As the date draws closer and a rival printer whips the neighborhood into a witch-hunting frenzy, Sophia realizes she wasn't sent back to observe. She was sent back to intervene. To save the woman she loves, Sophia must break every rule of history—forging papers, fighting mobs, and rewriting the ending before the ink dries.

The history books say they die. Sophia Moretti has three years to prove them wrong.

We return to the Wild West in Love and Gunpowder by Valeska Delsol.

In the dying days of the American wild west, Cassidy Blackwell has learned to survive by living fast and hard, never trusting too easily, and killing before being killed. Raised by an infamous outlaw who molded her into a weapon, Cass carved out a name for herself riding with the Blackwell Gang—an unlikely bunch of thieves and misfits who found solace in each other. They have bled together, fought together, and dreamed of one day buying their way to freedom.

But everything changes when Cass crosses paths with Eleanor Montgomery—a rich heiress caught in a gilded cage, hiding a raging fire beneath the silk and corsetry of high society. Their connection is instant, dangerous, and impossible. Still, they can’t seem to stay away from each other… even when their bond threatens everything.

The March books start off with a couple of titles pulled from mythic ancient Greece.

Daughter of the Hunt by K. Arsenault Rivera from Forever takes up the tale of a tragic character from the Illiad and gives her a second chance.

Iphigenia Pelops lives only to serve her family. As the eldest child, it is her responsibility and privilege—as well as the only safeguard against the family curse. So when Artemis, Queen of the Court of the Wild, demands a sacrifice from the Pelops in exchange for her blessing in a dangerous power struggle, Iphigenia is the natural choice.

However, Artemis is horrified when she learns that Iphigenia’s family offered Iphigenia without her consent. As recompense, she takes Iphigenia as her disciple and teaches her the ways of the hunt—and soon, the ways of the body, as feelings blossom between them.

Only Iphigenia cannot forget her precious siblings, doomed to misfortune by the Pelops curse—and freeing them will require a terrible cost.

Entirely coincidentally, the second title picks up themes from the Odyssey: Sweetbitter Song by Rosie Hewlett from Sourcebooks Landmark.

One summer night, within the palace of Sparta, a young slave girl stumbles across a grey-eyed princess. Despite living worlds apart, Melantho and Penelope are instantly drawn to one another, and a powerful friendship blossoms. But the Spartan royals do not approve of this bond, and soon Melantho and Penelope find themselves viciously torn apart, their trust irreparably shattered.

Years later, their paths cross once again upon the rocky shores of Ithaca, where Melantho is sent to serve Princess Penelope and her new husband, Prince Odysseus. Embittered by life as a slave, Melantho is determined to keep her distance. But, once again, the two women find themselves drawn to one other, pulled by the echo of their friendship, and something far stronger they are too afraid to name.

When war blazes across Greece, Odysseus and the men of Ithaca are driven to foreign lands. In their absence, Melantho finds a new world opening up before her – one where women rule, where family can be found, and where a forbidden love is finally given the space to bloom.

The Alchemist's Secret by Clare Marchant from Boldwood Books is another cross-time story, with storylines from both the present day and the 17th century.

Now: When Paige returns to her ancestral family home, Woodham Hall, she’s nursing an unbearable heartbreak. The man she’d thought she loved has told her the most terrible lie, one she feels she’ll never recover from. The only thing that seems to be able to hold her interest is the story of a poisoning that once supposedly happened in the house – depicted in brutal detail in a painting by an unknown artist.

1672: Jeanne’s life at Woodham Hall is happy. Admittedly her brother-in-law – the lord of the manor – is unfaithful to her sister, causing terrible discord in the house. But Jeanne adores her sister, and her niece, Helene, and even though her growing feelings for another member of the household are illicit, they are bringing her great joy. That is, until Sir Robert chooses to move his mistress in.

Jeanne and her sister are to be banished to a French abbey to live out their days but all the sisters can think is how to get back to Helene, and the woman who Jeanne might just love. From the glittering court of the Sun King to the dark depths of French society and those who perform alchemy, they will do whatever they must. Even if it means murder.

Like many of the pirate-themed books that get listed here, Salt and Surrender (The Aramanthine Sea #1) by E.S. Brandon from Moonlit Forge Press is more fantasy than history, envisioning a gender-blind navy.

In 1720, the Caribbean belongs to women and monsters.

Captain Eleanor “Nell” Blackwood of the Royal Navy lives for duty, clean lines on a map, and a ship that runs like clockwork. Her vessel is her pride, her uniform a shield for the heart she keeps locked away. But when a brutal clash leaves her ship broken and her crew scattered, she wakes bound on the deck of a French privateer, staring up into the cold smile of its captain.

Marguerite “Marin” Devereaux has earned every whispered legend about La Sirène Noire. Clever, merciless, and beautiful in a way that feels like a warning, she should ransom the English captain or throw her overboard. Instead, she keeps Nell close where she can watch her, in a cabin with only one bed and nowhere to run.

Tempers flare. Hands stray where they shouldn’t. But when the Turned trap them on a fog-shrouded island, Nell and Marin must trust the one woman they most want to hate, and can’t stop wanting.

Storms are gathering. The Admiralty is hunting. On a sea that demands blood for every choice, one question remains:

What will they surrender first—their duty, or their hearts?

A Change of Pace by J.A. Stevens from Generous Press gives us a female rake in a Regency setting.

Some games you play to win, others you play to surrender.

Miss Georgina "George" Pace is no angel. She has seduced many beautiful women in her day, leaving a trail of satisfied lovers (and their bewildered spouses) in her wake. Only her closest friends remember what she's trying to forget as she drowns her sorrows in pleasure and passion. When a corrupt gaming house targets dear Mr. Coombes, George's world of wit and charm turns deadly serious. Driven by a guilty past, she will stop at nothing in a quest for justice—which leads her straight to the Countess, Lady Elizabeth Mortimer. The Countess is sharp as a tack with an elegance that George finds utterly irresistible, even if those gray eyes obscure shadowy allegiences. Will George wager everything, including her guarded heart?

And once again we’re back to the Wild West in A Comfortable Misery by Kassandra Hart.

Territory of Montana, 1885.

For Miss Kathryn Blackford, death is only the beginning. Desperate to escape her miserable life as a coal-miner in Cinder, a dismal town nestled in the Rocky Mountains, she stages her own death so that she can start life anew—unbound, unrestricted, and free to do as she pleases.

Just as she is about to leave Cinder forever, Miss Blackford unexpectedly crosses paths with the stubborn and spoiled Miss Elizabeth Lancaster, daughter of the proprietor of Cinder’s coalmine. For that reason alone, Miss Blackford is determined to hate her.

It would have been easy for that hate to endure, too, were it not for the inconvenient events that brought the two so close together, setting them on a tumultuous journey marked each day with calamity, deceit, and troublesome attraction.

I tend to be picky about which vampire stories I categorize as historical, but The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White from Del Rey draws elements from the original Dracula.

Anneke has a complicated relationship with her father, Abraham Van Helsing—doctor, scientist, and madman devoted to the study of vampires—until the night she comes home to find him murdered, with a surreally beautiful woman looming over his body. A woman who leaves no trace behind, other than the dreams and nightmares that now plague Anneke every night.

Spurred by her desire for vengeance and armed with the latest forensic and investigatory techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives to catch this mysterious serial killer. Because her father isn’t the only inexplicable dead body. There’s a trail of victims across Europe, and Anneke is certain they’re all connected.

But during the years spent relentlessly hunting the killer, Anneke keeps crucial evidence to herself: infuriatingly coy letters, addressed only to her, occasionally soaked in blood, and always signed Diavola.

The closer Anneke gets to her devil, though, the less sense the world makes. Maybe her father wasn’t a madman after all. Diavola might be something much worse than a serial killer…and much harder to destroy. Yet as Anneke unearths more of Diavola’s tragic past, she suspects there’s still a heart somewhere in that undead body.

A heart that beats for Anneke alone.

And in another coincidence we have a second title mashing up characters from literature in Wayward Souls (Harker & Moriarty #2) by Susan J. Morris from Bindery Books.

Six days before Samhain—the night when the veil between worlds is thinnest—Samantha Harker, daughter of Dracula’s killer, and Dr. Helena Moriarty, daughter of the famed criminal mastermind, are thrown into their next case: the mysterious disappearance of two Society field agents in Ireland. Only this time, the Royal Society is sending Jakob Van Helsing to keep an eye on them.

Sam and Hel may have solved the Paris case, but that doesn’t mean the Society trusts them. Sam has the power to slip into the minds of monsters, and Van Helsing has sworn to kill her at the first sign of corruption. And if Hel can’t prove her father’s existence, she’ll soon go down for his crimes.

Their investigation takes them from the crumbling ruins of Ireland’s untamed wilds to the occult societies of the rich and powerful. The connection between Sam and Hel is electric, but as they fall deeper into each other’s orbit, their secrets only multiply. For Hel, it’s the sins she committed when she was her father’s pawn. For Sam, it’s a plague of death omens, mysterious black feathers, and a siren song no one else can hear. And then comes a chilling revelation that is poised to shatter everything: The agents who disappeared were each haunted by a ghost. And so, it seems, is Sam.

I’ve been seeing a lot of magical school stories lately. A lot. Ones with historic settings often have a gothic flavor, like Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran from Doubleday Books.

In 1928, Emily Locke's final year at the isolated Briarley School for Girls is derailed when Violet, the school's brightest star (and a cunning beauty for whom Emily would do anything), falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. Emily and her buttoned-up rival Evelyn are, for once, in agreement: Violet’s death was no accident. There's an obvious culprit, the French schoolmistress with whom Violet was getting a little too close—they only need to prove it.

Desperate for answers, Emily and her classmates turn to spiritualism, hoping for a glimpse of wisdom from the great beyond. To their shock, Violet’s spirit appears, choosing pious Evelyn as her unlikely medium. And Violet has a warning for them: the danger has just begun.

Something deadly is infecting Briarley. It starts with rotten food and curdled milk, but quickly grows more threatening. As the body count rises and the students race to save themselves, Emily must confront the fatal forces poisoning the school. Emily's fight for survival forces her to reevaluate everything she knows: about Violet, Evelyn, Briarley, and, ultimately, herself.

Stacy Lynn Miller keeps them coming in the Hattie James series set around World War II, this time with The Nightshade (Hattie James #4) from Severn River Publishing.

Her voice enchants crowds. Her secrets will expose conspiracies. One mistake could cost her everything.

December 1941: As bombs fall on Pearl Harbor, singer Hattie James faces a personal nightmare when her sister Olivia vanishes. The kidnappers demand an impossible price—her father's classified list of undercover American and Nazi spies.

Wartime paranoia and family loyalty take Hattie to Washington D.C. with Maya and Commander Leo Bell to hunt an elusive, high-ranking mole in the War Department who is after those lists. Leo, a military intelligence officer with access to classified operations, becomes their crucial inside man, navigating the treacherous corridors of power. Meanwhile in Rio de Janeiro, Hattie’s father Karl slowly recovers from near-fatal wounds under her mother's watchful care as Nazi agents close in on his location.

As war declarations echo across radio waves, these fragile alliances become Hattie's only hope of untangling a conspiracy that threatens both nations. As Hattie inches closer to the truth, she discovers that exposing the traitor might save her sister—or destroy them both.

What Am I Reading?

For my own reading…um…I’m clearly in a slump these days. Only two books this month and neither really worked for me. I’ve been working through a bunch of Diana Wynne Jones’s YA fantasies, inspired by the podcast Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, which is doing deep dives into her entire catalog. I remember enjoying a number of Diana Wynne Jones books back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but they aren’t hitting as well for me now. This month’s listen was Witch Week and I just found the central characters thoroughly unpleasant. I’m probably just at the wrong point in my life for these books and I need to pull back for now.

The second book was, alas, a DNF. The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner is a perfectly reasonable fantasy quest adventure with some lovely sapphic yearning, but it just isn’t a flavor of fiction that grabs me. I find in general that books that feel like they’re grown in the potting soil of D&D style questing are unlikely to work for me.

Or maybe I’m just going through a period when I hate everything. Somebody point me to some stories that are more my style, I’m getting desperate here.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

Gentleman Jack (ballet) by the Northern Ballet Company
Northern Ballet Company You Tube channel
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Mourão, Manuela. 1999. “The representation of female desire in early modern pornographic texts, 1660-1745” in Signs, 24: 589-94.
- Toulalan, Sarah. 2003. “Extraordinary Satisfactions: Lesbian Visibility in Seventeenth-Century Pornography in England” in Gender and History 15: 50-68
- Johnson, Charles (pseudonym). 1724. A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy. London: T. Warner.
Book Shopping
- Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto Sterling
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
What I’ve been consuming
- Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones
- The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
Twitter: @LesbianMotif
Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

Website: http://alpennia.com
Email: Heather Rose Jones
Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

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The Most Infamous Female Pirates Who Probably Weren't Lesbians

Friday, March 6, 2026 - 10:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

By pure coincidence, I'm going to be posting two different series interleaved on the blog for the next month or so. They're quite different in nature! The Lesbian Historic Motif Project will be looking into the mythology around early 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read (starting with this post), while an entire separate blog series will be starting shortly presenting The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category. What the two have in common is a love for doing a deep dive into source data, analyzing it, then explaining my conclusions to the general public. In the case of the General History of the Pirates, I'm not unearthing any new data, and the analysis is more a matter of trying to make sense of how a myth was created and how we can tell it's a myth. But in the case of the Hugo analysis (which was mostly a fun mental exercise), I've put together a discussion that goes into more detail than has ever previously been done (as far as I can tell). I hope readers don't get too much mental whiplash between the two!

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LHMP #547a Johnson 1724 A General History of the Pyrates Part 1

Full citation:

Publication summary:

A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Publication summary:

A presentation and analysis of material related to Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History of the Pyrates, with additional material from journalistic and legal records.

Part 1: Background and the Journalistic Record

I was inspired to tackle this set of material because of the flood of sapphic “pirate romances,” many of which are reworkings of the myth (and I use “myth” advisedly) of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, while others spin off from the Hollywood version of the broader myths of the Golden Age of Piracy derived from the anonymously authored General History of the Pirates. As often happens, I was curious to know the original primary source materials that set these myths in motion. Moreover, I was curious to try to determine what parts of that source material might have any basis in fact.

It is, perhaps, a misnomer to refer to the stories about Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the General History as a “primary” source, as it is generally assessed by historians to be highly fictionalized. The documents closest to direct witness accounts have far less detail and no mention at all of the lives of Bonny and Read prior to their being declared pirates and their subsequent capture and trial. But as the General History is the sole source of the assertion that the two women had a sapphic encounter, it’s necessary to place it in context, both among the contemporary and near-contemporary documents, and among the tropes and motifs concerning passing women in military and naval occupations.

In putting together this discussion, I’m deeply indebted to the work of Jillian Molenaar, who blogs about the ways in which stories about Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read have evolved and been adapted in popular culture. She did the legwork of tracking down and documenting references to the activities, arrest, and trial of these three that were recorded before the waters were muddied by mythologization. You can find her website at https://jillianmolenaar.home.blog/.

That mythologized version of Bonney and Read’s biographies first appears in the 1724 publication A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny ... To which is added. A short abstract of the statute and civil law, in relation to pyracy, hereafter shortened to General History. [Note: “The Island of Providence” is New Providence Island in the Bahamas. The text I’ve used is the second edition, available from archive.org at https://archive.org/details/generalhistoryof00defo, accessed 2025/07/09] The book’s authorship is given as Captain Charles Johnson but this is generally considered to be a pseudonym. One theory attributes authorship to novelist Daniel Defoe, although there are other completing theories. I’ll refer to the author as “Johnson” but it should always be understood to involve scare-quotes.

I haven’t found a specific publication date for the first edition of the General History but the second (expanded) edition was published on 5/14/1724. As the first edition cites the same publication year, and as England was still using the Julian calendar at the time, with the year beginning on March 25, then the first edition could have been published no earlier than March. Given the volume of additional material included in the second edition, it might make sense to allow for the maximum time between the editions and consider March 1724 the most likely date.

The General History, despite its superficial format as a collection of biographies, is an inventive literary work rather than a reliable historic record, which is problematic, given that it more or less singlehandedly created the popular image of the “golden age of piracy” that continues to dominate popular culture today. The publication covers 35 individuals, three of whom are considered to be entirely invented. Bonney and Read are the only women included in the list.

If I’m interpreting the information correctly, the material in Volume 1 of the second edition is the original work, while Volume 2 of the second edition contains the new material added when the work was reprinted later the same year. The book was enormously popular, and was reprinted multiple times with further expansions of the material in the next several years.

Before considering the version of Bonny and Read’s stories in the General History, let’s examine earlier documentary material, to have a sense of what Johnson—and we’ll use that name for the author for convenience—might have been working from. The majority of this material is sourced from Jillian Molenaar’s website, which includes photocopies of the original documents and transcripts of their contents. I’ll primarily be including the material referencing Read or Bonney, but also occasionally material that only references Rackham.

An important aspect of understanding these records is the significant lag-time in communication. Information traveled to newspapers in London and American cities such as Philadelphia and Boston at the speed of sailing ships and, as we’ll see, was often reported in the context of noting recently arrived vessels which we may assume were the source of the news, whether printed or verbal. Based on the dates of the events and newspaper articles, it appears that it took about six weeks for news to make it to New England, and four months to reach London. For this reason, the following will be organized by the date of the events being reported, not the date of the published report.

September 4, 1720

An item in The Boston Gazette dated October 17, 1720 reports:

“New-Providence, Sept. 4th. Several Pirates are on the Coast of the Bahamas, among which is one Rackum who Run away with a Sloop of 6 Guns, and took with him 12 Men, and Two Women….”

[Note: See the discussion of crew members below for various conflicts in the numbers.]

September 5, 1720

A second item The Boston Gazette also dated October 17, 1720 describes the official response:

“Whereas: John Rackum, George Featherstone, John Davis, Andrew Gibson, John Howell, Noah Patrick–&c. and two Women, by Name, Ann Fulford alias Bonny, & Mary Read, did on the 22d of August last combine together to enter on board, take, steal and run-away with out of this Road of Providence, a Certain Sloop call’d the William, Burthen about 12 Tons, mounted with 4 great Guns and 2 Swivel ones, also Amunition, Sails, Rigging, Anchor, Cables, and a Canoe, owned by and belonging to Capt. John Ham, and with the said Sloop did proceed to commit Robery and Piracy upon the Boat and Effects of James Gohier Esq; on the South side of this Island, also upon Capt. Isaac’s Master of a Sloop riding at Berry-Islands in his Way from South-Carolina to this Port: Wherefore these are to Publish and make Known to all Persons Whatsoever, that the said John Rackum and his said Company are hereby proclaimed Pirates and Enemies to the Crown of Great-Brittain, and are to be so treated and Deem’d by all his Majesty’s Subjects. Given at Nassau, this 5th of September, 1720. Sign’d Woodes Rogers.”

[Note: From the very first, it’s clear that the presence of the women was considered newsworthy. While only a partial list of the male crew is given, the two women are specifically named and called out. This isn’t surprising, but it provides context for there being significant public hunger for more information about them.]

October 31, 1720

On October 31, 1720 the Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica recorded:

“Last night I received the agreeable news, that captain Barnet had taken Rackam the pirate, and eighteen of his crew, and had put them ashore at the leeward part of the island, from whence they are coming up by land under a strong guard.”

The context of transmission of news like this is illustrated by an item in The American Weekly Mercury (a Philadelphia paper [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bradford]) dated December 8, 1720 which first lists the arriving ships and captains from various ports, then notes that news had arrived from Jamaica about the capture of Rackham and his crew “which consisted of 26 Men and two Women, who were all carried into Jamaica.” At the time news of the capture was published in Philadelphia, the trials and executions had already taken place.

Multiple other news items mention the taking of Rackham and his crew and their fate without noting the presence of women (either in general or by name). One item in The Daily Post (location unknown) dated January 13, 1721 lists “a Pyrate Sloop, commanded by one Rackham of Jamaica, having on board 14 Men.” An item in The London Journal dated January 14, 1721 is more gender-neutral listing “fourteen Hands on board.”

[Note: As can be seen in these items, the size of Rackham’s crew was reported in extremely variable terms. See the discussion below about the crew size.]

November 16, 1720

An official pamphlet published in 1721 gives details of the piracy trials and their results. As is typical for the era, it has an exceedingly long title, which I’ll condense to The Tryals of Captain John Rackham, and other Pirates ... As Also, the Tryals of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn ... Also, a True Copy of the Act of Parliament made for the more effectual suppression of Piracy. [Note: Once again, Bonny and Read are called out specifically, reflecting the public interest in their inclusion.] While Rackham’s trial is given prominence in the title, a whole sequence of piracy trials are recorded in this document, reflecting unrelated crews. The last trial date included is the subsequent March 22. The publication itself doesn’t have a more specific date than the year, but the copy held by the National Library of Jamaica and preserved at archive.org (https://archive.org/details/the-tryals-of-captain-john-rackham) has a series of handwritten notes at the end, which I read (with difficulty) as the following:

“Jamaica. The Tryals of several Pyrates at Jamaica in Nov. {??} 1720. Received with {dir} Nicholas La{w’ letter} of 12th June 1721”

“Rec’d August 14th. Read Ditto 17th 1721”

“Q.4.”

At any rate, this narrows the publication date down to sometime between March 22 and June 12, 1721. So let’s split the difference and say “May.”

The first part of the report is headed “November the 16th, 1720” and is a formal report of court proceedings. It lists the individuals present at the Court of Admiralty, has the text of a royal commission with respect to suppressing piracy, and then moves on to the trial of nine defendants, including “John Rackam” but not including either Anne Bonney or Mary Read. Rackham and seven others were described as being from “the island of Providence in America” while the remaining man was from Philadelphia. [Note: “The island of Providence in America” is, as above, New Providence, Bahamas. Obviously at this date “America” was not yet a reference to the United States of America, but simply a reference to the New World in general.] There follow detailed accounts of specific attacks on other ships made by the crew. The defendants all pled Not Guilty, after which witnesses were deposed who gave detailed eye-witness accounts of the attacks and identified the defendants as having taken part. All nine were judged guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

November 17, 1720

The record continues with a new dateline for the trial of two additional men with a single charge (from the list in the previous Rackham trial) made against them. (Presumably this is the reason for trying them separately: that they were only involved in one charge.) They pled Not Guilty, witnesses were deposed, the defendants were judged guilty and sentenced to hang.

November 18, 1720

The record continues under this date to record the execution of five men, including Rackham, and then on the following day (November 19) the other four men from the first trial, and on “Monday following” (Nov. 21) the execution of the two men from the second trial. (The “day of the week” calculator at https://aulis.org/Calendar/Day_of_the_Week.html using the “Old Style” calculator applying to dates before 1752, gives November 19, 1720 as a Saturday, therefore the “Monday following” would be the 21st. I suppose it makes sense to skip doing executions on a Sunday.)

Note: As the initial capture reports indicated that 12 men and 2 women were taken, but the trial only involved 11 men, one possible conclusion is that one of the men (Andrew Gibson) died prior to trial, but none of the documents I reviewed has any mention of this.

November 22, 1720

The periodical The Post Boy (published in London, England) reported on March 28, 1721, the results of the initial trials listing 11 men (including Jack Rackham) as having been convicted of piracy and hanged. The trial results had a dateline of November 22 [1720] from San Iago de la Vega in Jamaica. There is no mention in this item of Bonney or Read. This is far too soon for receipt in London of the published trial record, but if we assume that the news started to travel after Rackham’s sentencing and before the Bonney/Read trial, we can narrowly estimate a news travel time of about four months. Multiple news reports of the trial and executions in various publications at this time list only Rackham by name, or may add the names of some other men.

November 28, 1720

Returning to the trial report, there is a new section datelined November 28, 1720 for the trial of “Mary Read” and “Ann Bonny, alias Bonn.” Once again, the commissioners are named, the defendants are listed, and then the charges are listed. In this case, I’ll provide a complete transcript of the charges.

“I. That they, the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of them, on the first Day of September, in the Seventh Year of the Reign of Our said Lord the King, that now is, upon the High Sea, in a certain Sloop of an unknown Name, being; did feloniously and wickedly, consult, and agree together, and to and with, John Rackam, George Fetherston, Richard Corner, John Davies, John Howell, Patrick Carty, Thomas Earl, and Noah Harwood, to rob, plunder, and take, all such Persons, as well Subjects of Our said Lord the King, that now is, as others, in Peace and Amity with His said Majesty, which they should meet with on the high Sea; and in Execution of their said Evil Designs, afterwards (to wit) on the Third Day of September, in the Year last mentioned, with Force and Arms, Etc. upon the high Sea, in a certain Place, distant about Two Leagues from Harbour-Island in America, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did piratically, feloniously, and in a hostile manner, attack, engage, and take, Seven certain Fishing-Boats, then being, Boats of certain Persons, Subjects of our said now Lord the King, (to the Register aforesaid unknown) and then and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did make an Assault, in and upon, certain Fishermen, Subjects of our said Lord the King, (whose Names to the Register aforesaid are unknown) in the same Fishing-Boats, in the peace of God, and of our said now Lord the King, then and there being, and then and there, Piratically, and Feloniosly [sic], did put the aforesaid Fishermen, in the said Fishing-Boats then being, in Corporal Fear of their Lives; and then and there, piratically and feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the Fish, and Fishing-Tackle, of the value of Ten pounds, of Current Money of Jamaica, the Goods and Chattels of the aforesaid Fishermen, then and there upon the high Sea aforesaid, in the aforesaid place, about two Leagues distant from Harbour-Island aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction aforesaid, being found, in the said Fishing-Boats, in the Custody and Possession of the said Fishermen, from the said Fishermen, and from their Custody and Possession, then and there, upon the high Sea aforesaid, in the place aforesaid, distant about two Leagues form Harbour Island aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction aforesaid.

“II. That afterwards, to wit, The first Day of October, in the Year last mentioned, they, the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of them, in the said Pirate Sloop being, by Force and Arms, etc. Upon the high Sea, in a certain place, distant about three Leagues from the Island of Hispaniola in America; and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, and Feloniously, set upon, Shoot at, and take, two certain Merchant Sloops, then being, Sloops of certain Persons, Subjects of our said Lord the King (to the aforesaid Register unknown) and then and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did make an Assault, in and upon, one James Dobbin, and certain other Mariners (whose Names to the Register aforesaid are unknown) in the same Merchant Sloops, in the peace of God, and of our said now Sovereign Lord the King, then and there being, and then, and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did put the aforesaid Mariners, of the same two Merchant Sloops, in the aforesaid two Merchaint Sloops then being, in Corporal fear of their Lives, and then and there afterwards, to wit, The said first Day of October, in the Year last mentioned, upon the high Sea, in the place aforesaid, distant about three Leagues from Hispaniola aforesaid, in America aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction aforesaid, Priatically and Feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the said two Merchant Sloops, and the Apparrel and Tackle of the same Sloops, of the Value of One Thousand Pounds of Current Money of Jamaica.

“III. That they, the said Mary Read, and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of them, in the said Pirate Sloop being, afterwards (to wit) the Nineteenth Day of October, in the Year last mentioned, with Force and Arms, etc. Upon the high Sea, at a certain place, distant about Five Leagues from Porto-Maria-Bay, in the Island of Jamaica aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, Feloniously, and in a Hostile manner, Shoot at, set upon, and take, a certain Scooner, of an unknown Name, whereof one Thomas Spenlow was Master, then being, a Scooner of certain Persons, Subjects of our said Lord the King (to the Register aforesaid unknown) and then and there, Piratically, Feloniously, and in a Hostile manner, did make an Assault, in and upon the said Thomas Spenlow, and certain other Mariners (whose Names to the Register aforesaid are unknown) in the same Scooner, in the Peace of God, and of our said now Lord the King, then and there being, and then and there Piratically and Feloniously, did put the aforesaid Thomas Spenlow, and other Mariners of the same Scooner, in the Scooner aforesaid, then being, in Corporal Fear of their Lives; and then and there iratically and Feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the said Scooner, and the Apparel and Tackle of the same Scooner, of the value of Twenty Pounds of Current Money of Jamaica.

“IV. That they, the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of them, in the aforesaid Pirate Sloop being, afterwards (to wit) the 20th Day of Octob. in the Year last mention’d with Force and Arms, etc. upon the high Sea, at a certain Place, distant, about one League from Dry-Harbour-Bay, in the Island of Jamaica, aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, Feloniously, and in a Hostile manner, set upon, bard, and enter, a certain Merchant Sloop, called the Mary, then being a Sloop of certain Persons (to the Register aforesaid unknown) whereof Thomas Dillon Mariner was Master; and then and there, did make an Assault, in and upon the said Thomas Dillon, and certain other Mariners (whose Names to the Register aforesaid are unknown) in the same Sloop, called the Mary, in the Peace of God, and of our said now Lord the King, then and there being, and then and there, Piratically and Feloniously, did put the aforesaid Thomas Dillon, and other the [sic] Mariners of the same Merchant Sloop, called the Mary, in the said Sloop called the Mary then being, in Corporal Fear of their Lives; and then and there Piratically, and Feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the said Sloop Mary, and the Apparel and Tackle of the same Sloop, of the Value of Three hundred Pounds, of Current Money of Jamaica.”

These are identical to the four articles charged against the first group of nine men, indicating that Bonny and Read were present on the ship for the entire period covered by those charges. Article III is the one charged against the two men in the second trial. The details of the articles aren’t identical across the records of the three trials, but the events in question clearly align.

The following witnesses were deposed, giving the transcribed testimony.

“Dorothy Thomas deposed, That she, being in a Canoa [sic] at Sea, with some Stock and Provisions, at the North-side of Jamaica, was taken by a Sloop, commanded by one Captain Rackam (as she afterwards heard;) who took out of the Canoa, most of the Things that were in her: And further said That the Two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board the said Sloop, and wore Mens Jackets, and long Trouzers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads; and that each of them had a Machet and Pistol in their Hands, and cursed and swore at the Men, to murther the Deponent; and that they should kill her, to prevent her coming against them; and the Deponent further said, That the Reason of her knowing and believing them to be Women then was, by the largeness of their Breasts.”

“Thomas Spenlow, being sworn, deposed, That when he was taken by Rackam, the two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board Rackam’s Sloop.”

“John Besneck, and Peter Cornelian, two Frenchmen, were produced as Witnesses, against the Prisoners at the Bar, and were sworn. Mr. Simon Clarke was sworn Interpreter; Then the said Two Witnesses declared, That the Two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were on Board Rackam’s Sloop, at the Time that Spenlow’s Scooner, and Dillon’s Sloop, were taken by Rackam; That they were very active on Board, and willing to do any Thing; That Ann Bonny, one of the Prisoners at the Bar, handed Gun-powder to the Men, That when they saw any Vessel, gave Chase, or Attacked, they wore Men’s Cloaths; and, at other Times, they wore Women’s Cloaths; That they did not seem to be kept, or detain’d by Force, but of their own Free-Will and Consent.”

“Thomas Dillon, being sworn, declared, That on or about the Twentieth Day of October last, he was lying at Anchor, with the Sloop Mary and Sarah, whereof he was Master, in Dry-Harbour, in Jamaica; and that a strange Sloop came into the said Harbour, which fired a Gun at the Deponent’s Sloop; whereupon the Deponent and his Men went ashoar, in order to defend themselves, and Sloop; And that after several Shot had been fired at them, by the said Sloop, the Deponent hailed them, and one Fetherston (as the Deponent believ’d) answer’d, That they were English Pirates, and that they need not be afraid, and desired the Deponent to come on Board; whereupon the Deponent went on Board, and found that the said Sloop was commanded by one John Rackam; afterwards the said Rackam, and his Crew, took the Deponent’s Sloop, and her Lading, and carried her with them to Sea; and further said, That the two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board Rackam’s Sloop; and that Ann Bonny, one of the Prisoners at the Bar, had a Gun in her Hand, That they were both very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do any Thing on Board.”

Comparing these to the witness lists from the previous trials, the first trial deposed Thomas Spenlow, Peter Cornelian and John Besneck, and also James Spatchears who did not testify against Bonney and Read. The second trial also deposed Thomas Spenlow, as well as Mr. Cohen and William Swaile (who did not testify in the other two trials). The content of the witness testimony differs considerably from trial to trial, clearly focusing on the involvement of the specific defendants.

Bonney and Read were judged guilty and sentenced to be hung. After sentencing, both women told the court they were “quick with Child” and asked for a stay of execution. [Note: this was a fairly common tactic as courts were hesitant to execute a pregnant woman.] “Whereupon the Court ordered, that Execution of the said Sentence should be respited, and that an Inspection should be made.” And court was adjourned until December 19th.

News of the trials and their outcomes took some time to be disseminated. An item in The Daily Courant (a London paper, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Courant) dated September 1, 1721 reports an account received in London from Jamaica “by the fleet newly arrived” of “the Execution at Kingston and Port Royal of nine more Pyrates; also of the Tryal and Condemnation of 11 others, two of which were Women, named Mary Read and Sarah Bonny; the Evidence against whom deposed, that they were both in Mens Habit, and fought desperately, and that they narrowly escaped being murdered by them.” The identical text was reported in The Daily Journal, The Post Boy, and The Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer on September 2, 1721. The London Journal, also on September 2, 1721, used a different phrasing of the same basic information: “the Execution of Nine Pyrates, and of the Tryal and Condemnation of Eleven more, Two of which were Women, named Mary Road and Anne Bonney, against whom ’twas prov’d, that they both of them wore Seamens Habits, were in Arms, fought desperately, and were more unmerciful than any of the Crew.”

Given the similarity of details to those in the published trial records, it is reasonable to conclude that these accounts were based on a copy of that publication, newly received in London. Based on our triangulation of a publication date in May 1721, this matches our previous observation of a travel time of 4 months for news to get to London.

December 19, 1720 and later

Several other hearings are documented in the published trial records between December 19, 1720 and March 22, 1720 that have no direct connection with the Rackham crew. [Note: The British Empire did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar, along with the use of January 1 to start the new year, until 1752. In the 1720s, the new year still started on Annunciation Day (March 25). So although the court record says “March 22, 1720” we should understand it as 1721. The same applies to the next item.] The following does mention Rackham:

January 24, 1720 (read: 1721) during a trial of nine men, a witness indicated that the men had joined up with Rackham and his crew to commit piracy during October 1820 (referencing one of the charges listed in Rackham’s trial). Although there is a long list of men associated with Rackham’s crew in the testimony, neither Read nor Bonney are mentioned. The defendants claimed they had functionally been impressed into Rackham’s crew by force, nevertheless they were found guilty and sentenced to death.

The publication concludes with the text of “An Act made at Westminster in the Kingdom of Great Britain in the Eleventh and Twelfth Years of the Reign of King William III Entituled [sic], An Act for the more effectual Suppression of Piracy.”

This trial record does not follow up on the results of the “inspection” of Bonney and Read regarding their claimed pregnancies. However, the following record has been identified.

April 28, 1721

A line-item in the St. Catherine Baptisms Marriages & Burials, Vol. I: 1669-1764 lists the burial on April 28, 1721 of “Mary Read pirate.” (St. Catherine is a parish in Jamaica.)

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Contrasting Views of F/F Sex in the 17th Century

Monday, March 2, 2026 - 08:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

This finishes up the cluster of articles I've been reading on lesbianism in pornography. The current article points out an interesting contrast in the view of lesbian sex depicted in pornography versus that depicted in "learned" texts, especially medical manuals.

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LHMP #546 Toulalan 2003 Extraordinary Satisfactions

The School of Venus (aka L’Escole des Filles)

Full citation:

Toulalan, Sarah. 2003. “Extraordinary Satisfactions: Lesbian Visibility in Seventeenth-Century Pornography in England” in Gender and History 15: 50-68

In contrast to the previous article on 17th century pornography, this one is all about the lesbians!

# # #

The typical focus on researching female same-sex desire in the early modern period centers around medical and legal records, the motif of physiological anomaly (the enlarged clitoris myth), and attempts to identify covert homoerotic themes in women’s writing. In contrast, pornography and popular culture (ballads and pamphlets) present a different view, even though they can rarely be interpreted as self-reporting of the women involved.

Pornography is a particularly rich source of imagery for how people thought sex between women was performed, setting aside the question of its accuracy. It contradicts the notion of lesbian sex as “hidden from history” or “something not to be named.” And in particular, pornographic literature diverges from the more learned imagery of “masculine” lesbians or clitoral hypertrophy.

Given the authorship and primary audience for 17th century pornography, it is often considered to reflect male prurient fantasies and have little connection with actual female behavior—a view exacerbated by modern feminist debates over whether pornography is inherently misogynistic, as well as by the persistant trope of the “obligatory lesbian scene” in modern pornography. But the depiction of lesbian sex in early modern pornography is more contradictory than a simple assumption of male gaze and highlights a significant gap between the image of lesbianism in elite literature and that intended for popular consumption.

This article attempts to recover the historical and social context that pornography had for 17th century readers, separate from the meanings imposed on it by modern analysis. Modern analysis is inevitably filtered through a psychoanalytic lens, which views fantasies of sex as serving psychological needs, especially relieving or displacing anxieties. For example, the presence of a dildo in f/f pornography is interpreted as reassuring the male reader that a penis analogue is indispensable to sexual satisfaction. But interpretations like this can be challenged, not only in a historic context, but in contemporary readings as well.

The main body of 17th century literary pornography (such as The School of Venus, The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea/Satyra Sotadica, and Venus in the Cloister) emerged from a genre of “dialogues between whores” which can be traced back to Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans, with more recent roots in Aretino and the like. Often the 17th century works would directly allude to these antecedents, either in format or in directly claiming the lineage. The new development was to place the dialogues in the mouths of ordinary women rather than prostitutes, sometimes framing them as instructional literature.

Although the economics and sociology of book buying and reading in the 17th century lean towards assuming a male audience, potential female readers should not be discounted; Direct evidence for any specific readers of pornography is rare, but general references to women and girls having access to erotic works (or works with sexual content, such as medical manuals) is recorded, often in disparaging ways. Reading, in this era, was often a social activity, with one person reading aloud to others.

Although the typically-anonymous authorship of pornographic texts is usually consider to be male, the texts themselves are framed through female voices (sometimes attributed to a fictitious female author) and often proclaim themselves to be intended for a female audience. Women were also active in the publishing industry. Claims that the texts themselves provide evidence of “inauthentic” male fantasies in part derive from modern assumptions about what authentic homoerotic experiences ought to look like. If the texts themselves are often contradictory or incoherent, is that proof of inauthenticity or evidence of multiple competing experiences and understandings? The contradictions between pornography and “professional” literature in this area have already been noted.

Traub (“The Perversion of Lesbian Desire”) argues for two dominant models of female homoerotic desire in the early modern period: the “masculine” tribade and the “chaste female friend.” But the protagonists of lesbian pornography fit into neither category. Although reference may be made to such ideas, the central characters are depicted as typically “feminine” women with no anatomical abnormalities. Their sexual activities include mutual acts, contradicting the image of a contrasting active/passive pair. Further, their encounters result in mutual orgasm, despite the absence (mostly) of any penis-analogue. Orgasm can be achieved by manual stimulation, and though dildos may be discussed in the text, they are absent from the women’s beds.

The actual content of these texts thus contradicts the assertions that early modern understandings of lesbianism assumed analogy to male-female relations. In a French context, it’s possible that this reflected harsh legal penalties for women engaged in penetrative sex (though why this should affect texts that include many different modes of transgressive sex is unclear). However English pornographic texts similarly offer few examples of dildo use by female couples (as opposed to being used for solitary pleasure). Exceptions (the examples are ballads) typically involve cross-dressing women who are suggested to have used an artificial penis, not only for disguise, but for sexual activity. This is a decidedly different context from the female-presenting women of the pornographic dialogues. Another context in which dildoes are mentioned in a putatively same-sex context involves men who disguise themselves as women in order to gain sexual access—an access which assumes that women might engage in erotic play together—who then pretends that his actual penis is a dildo to maintain the charade.

The author summarizes that 17th century pornography cannot be classified as merely intended to male consumption. It offers a different take on the possibilities for sex between women than the professional literature of the era. This apparent contradiction can be seen, instead, as illustrating the competing discourses available to readers. Although pornographic texts can’t be viewed as directly representing an “authentic” female experience, they do demonstrate that the popular imagination included the possibility of women engaging in satisfying sex together without the participation of a man, even symbolically.

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L’Escole des filles

Satyra Sotadica (Johannes Meursius)

Venus dans le Cloître (Abbe du Prat)

Dialogues of the Courtesans (Lucian)

Ragionamenti (Pietro Aretino)

Helkiah Crooke

Comical News from Bloomsbury

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Why yes, it's more 17th century pornography

Monday, February 23, 2026 - 16:00

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project

Just two more posts from the group of articles on pornography. Then I'll have a fun series on a primary source, which will tie in with a planned podcast. (Got to get working on that podcast script!)

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LHMP #545 Mourão 1999 The representation of female desire in early modern pornographic texts