Thanks to adventure literature and cinema, a persistent stereotype of the classic pirate has become firmly established in the public consciousness: a one-legged or one-eyed hulk with an earring in his ear, a colorful bandana on his head, a parrot on his shoulder and a cutlass in his hand. He drinks Jamaican rum, curses, sails the seas and oceans under a black flag with the image of a skull and crossbones and looks for treasures on distant exotic islands... But how does this image correspond to historical realities? What were the gentlemen of fortune really like - the prototypes of modern literary and film heroes? The inquisitive reader will find answers to these and other questions in the new book of the largest domestic piracy researcher Viktor Gubarev. You will meet the famous leaders of the corsairs, who became national heroes and glorified in folk legends, as well as fascinating stories about the hunt for the treasure of the Spanish crown, the prototypes of Captain Blood, the tragic fate of the “dread pirate” Kidd and the incredible odyssey of the hero of the American Revolution, John Paul Jones.< /p>