Bold in Her Breeches

Anne Bonny and Mary Read weren’t history’s only female pirates – though you’ll find them here alongside some lesser-known names.

From Artemisia in Ancient Greece, though to Grace O’Malley, Cheng I Sao, and more, you’ll find stories on what drove these women to sea, and the freedom it offered them alongside the risks. Fascinating.

When I was a little girl I wanted to grow up to be a pirate, and women pirates in particular inspired me. They still do. This collection expands on some of the well-known pirates like Ann Bonny, Mary Read, and Grace O’Malley, and brings diversity with tales of non-European pirates who ruled fleets of ships. When I’m writing my pirates, I can look at the historical record and know that while my work is fiction, there’s plenty of historical evidence for women seizing command and carrying the day.

Bold in her Breeches reclaims the tales of women pirates throughout the ages, starting as far back as 480 BC with the Greek female leader, Artemisia of Caria. Jo Stanley collects an array of diverse and interesting contributions from feminist theorists and maritime historians to record the huge number of unknown women who worked the high seas in various guises. This book helped to remove the romantic trappings from my own central character, Lola Blaise.

I picked up this book in a London bookshop long ago and read it on a stay near Land’s End in Cornwall, looking out to sea and dreaming. Just about everything in the book was new to me. It made sense that among the Viking warriors who attacked in their longboats, there were women like the pirate Alfhild, but I’d never heard of Grace O’Malley of Ireland who regularly raided English ships. I was ignorant of the pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, scourges of the Caribbean, or of the Chinese pirate Cheng I Sao. Stanley’s book, with contributions by… show more.