British Pirates in Print and Performance

242 Pages·2015·1.289 MB·English

by  Frederick Burwick, Manushag N. Powell

British Pirates in Print and
Performance
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British Pirates in Print and
Performance
Frederick Burwick and Manushag N. Powell
british pirates in print and performance
Copyright © Frederick Burwick and Manushag N. Powell 2015.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division
of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978-1-137-33991-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burwick, Frederick.
British pirates in print and performance / by Frederick Burwick and Manushag N.
Powell.
pages cm.
Summary: “This book tracks the interconnections among pirates, pirates in print, and
pirates on stage. Performance is the shared strategy for all three. Our chapters examine
accounts of piracy in historical records, in adventure stories and romance, and, crucial to
the emphasis on performativity, in stage representation. British pirates, in both print and
performance, are discussed within a nexus of influence that cares very little for generic
distinction beyond the constant of performativity. In fact and in fiction, the role-playing
pirate is traced through dozens of stage performances, including the nautical Gothic
melodrama, the adaptations of Byron, Scott, and Cooper, and the exploits of lusty she-
pirates”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-137-33991-1 (hardback)
1. English literature—History and criticism. 2. English drama—History and
criticism. 3. Pirates in literature. 4. Pirates—Great Britain—History. 5. Theater—
Great Britain—History. I. Powell, Manushag N. II. Title.
PR151.P57B87 2015
820.9'352—dc23
2014037602
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Amnet.
First edition: March 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Striding the Deck, Strutting the Stage 1
1 A Nation of Pirates 15
2 Pirates on Stage 33
3 Byron’s The Corsair 59
4 Scott’s The Pirate 73
5 Cooper’s The Pilot and The Red Rover 87
6 Pirate Sex 101
7 She-Pirates 119
8 Pirate Clichés 139
Appendix: Chronology of Pirate Plays in Britain 161
Notes 167
Bibliography 195
Index 213
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List of Illustrations
0.1 Mr. Henry Kemble in “The Dutch Pirate” (1822). Billy Rose
Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tildon Foundations. 4
3.1 Conrad in Prison, “The Corsair” (canto 2, ix, ll. 366–77).
Pencil and watercolor by Mather Brown (1814). Private
collection of Frederick Burwick. 61
4.1 Minna takes the pistol from Capt. Cleveland, “The Pirate.”
After painting by J. H. MacDonald, in Portrait of Sir Walter
Scott and Five Engravings in Illustration of the Pirate
(Edinburgh: The Royal Association for Promotion of the
Fine Arts in Scotland, 1871). 78
8.1 Paul Jones the Pirate. Engraving by A. Park (ca. 1826).
Private collection of Manushag N. Powell. 146
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Acknowledgments
The co-authors, Manushag Powell and Frederick Burwick, extend thanks to
each other for the ease and efficiency of their collaboration, especially the
promptness with which each responded to the queries and frustrations of the
other, and the attentive care with which they read each other’s drafts. We kept
ourselves on schedule. We each also owe a debt of gratitude to our respective
institutions, libraries, research facilities, and to our circle of colleagues.
Manushag Powell appreciates the support she received from Purdue Uni-
versity for granting her a sabbatical semester. Her department head, Nancy
Peterson, and her dean, Irwin Weiser, supported her in applying for scholar-
ship funding. She also found relevant assistance in workshopping with the
Medieval and Renaissance Studies program, whose many professors and
graduate students were so kind as to stretch the chronological boundaries
of “Early Modern.” She thanks especially Mike Ryan, Mike Johnston, and
Shaun Hughes. Beate Allert, Dorrie Armstrong, and Robyn Malo let her lec-
ture at them on many late Thursdays, and her incisive and curious ENGL
635 graduate students joined her in textual explorations from Johnson’s Gen-
eral History to Scott’s Pirate.
With the assistance of the stellar librarians at the Clark, Huntington, and
Chawton libraries, she was able to make optimum use of the collections.
For her travels she received support from the Purdue University Research
Fund, the Purdue University Faculty Scholar Fellowship program, and
a visiting fellowship from the Chawton House Library. Among the many
friends, colleagues, and captive conference-goers who listened with patience
to her presentations on pirates and pirate writers, she extends her gratitude
to Susan Carlile, Tita Chico, Noah Comet, Helen Deutsch, Jenny DiPla-
cidi, Nicole Horejsi, Christopher Loar, Robert Markley, Max Novak, Felicity
Nussbaum, Benjamin Pauley, John Richetti, Norbert Schürer, Kim Simpson,
Peter Staffel, Rivka Swenson, Debbie Welham, Roxann Wheeler, and Chloe
Wigston Smith. She is grateful to Denise Cruz for reading many drafts of the
work in progress. She acknowledges Derek Pacheco for perhaps the greatest