
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
About this listen
So writes Merle Johnson, who has here gathered together in one volume all of the nineteenth-century author-artist's classic pirate stories that had been scattered through many magazines and books. Well researched and with richly drawn characters, Pyle's work will appeal to students of history and adventure lovers alike.
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Critic reviews
"I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates." (Ernest Hemingway)
My review
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Good, bad, and ugly.
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Fascinating and wonderfully read
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Fun listening
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Overall very good
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Good fun - including a tired sounding page turn!
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The first chapter, a kind of survey-history of the buccaneer-pirate phenomenon, is a little bland and moralizing, but the following stories are great, especially those involving secret identities and double lives and changing fortunes and naive guys getting more than their share of adventure. Here's one of my favorite moments in the book, when a character is speculating on what drives can make a good man turn devil pirate: "Who, within his inner consciousness, does not feel that same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern, adamantine bonds of . . . morality and decorum? Were those bonds burst asunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild beast rush forth, as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear?"
And at his best, Pyle writes incredible painterly descriptions of pirate faces and clothes and ships in candlelight or moonlight or lightening light, descriptions that remain vividly in your mind like afterimages after the light fails. You can imagine the Disney artisans pouring over this book to gain inspiration and models for making the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction!
Simon Vance (aka Robert Whitfield) does his usual fine and flexible job of reading the text, though at times I wished for someone with a bit deeper voice.
Painterly Pirates, Treasure, Adventure!
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Great storytelling
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Short
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The book of Pirate's
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