To Memories Now I Can't Recall: The Origins of Anne Bonny and Mary Read

Abstract

Anne Bonny and Mary Read are among history’s most famous female pirates. Their story has circulated for more than three centuries, across countries and mediums of storytelling. Yet much of the familiar narrative is unreliable. Its origins can be traced back to a 1724 publication whose account is only loosely grounded in verifiable evidence, and later retellings. Romanticized fiction and uncritical repetition have further amplified the legend at the expense of historical documentation. What can be established with confidence about Bonny and Read remains limited, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of their lives. Even their early biographies are uncertain, reconstructed only tentatively from fragmentary records such as contemporary newspapers and parish registers. Those plausible origins, where they can be identified at all, are more ordinary, and in some respects more distinctive, than the myth suggests.