A Pirate Of Exquisite Mind

A rip-roaring swashbuckler about a forgotten 17th century English hero who, starting as a poor, piratical buccaneer, became a famed round-the-world explorer.

William Dampier (1651-1715), was an English adventurer and pirate who preyed on ships on the Spanish Main. Poor and ill-educated and determined to make his fortune, he nonetheless had a passion for exploration and scientific research.

Dampier was the first to map the winds and currents of the world's oceans; led the first recorded party of Englishmen to set foot on Australia—80 years before Cook; wrote about Galapagos wildlife 150 years before Darwin, who drew on Dampier's notes in his own work. He was the first travel writer— A New Voyage Around the World was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1697—and is said to have influenced the novels of Swift and Defoe.

A man full of contradictions, this adventurer who achieved so much 'blew it' later in life, declining into scandal, failure and even farce. A unique man ahead of his time, he lived a large part of his life among pirates yet managed to preserve what Coleridge called his "exquisite refinement of mind." A Pirate Of Exquisite Mind is a classic example of the best narrative history.