The King of Pirates is the story of Captain Avery a reluctant pirate. To read a pirate story from the viewpoint of a pirate is surprisingly different than I expected. It was worth reading for that use and to learn what amount the pirates were able to take and most were never hung or caught, according to the story.

One of the first, if not the first, important English novelists, Daniel Defoe, whose most famous books are "Robinson Crusoe" and "Moll Flanders," frequently blended fact and fiction in a way that would today be considered irresponsible. In his introduction to this slim, obscure novella, critic and writer Peter Ackroyd credits Defoe with inventing "what might be termed the poetry of fact." Like his better known novels, this is loosely based on a true story, which Defoe delivers in an epistolary (letters) form. It's an amusing, rousing story that can easily be read in one sitting and certainly laid the groundwork for the continued popularity of pirate fiction.