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Cross-Dressing on the Margins of Empire

In: Women at Sea

Author

Listed:
  • Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert

Abstract

Nearly 300 years after they sailed the Caribbean Sea from the Bahamas to Jamaica with “Calico” Jack Rackam’s crew, pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read remain the region’s most infamous women at sea.1 Their piratical careers, which ended with their capture and trial in November 1720, have fascinated writers from Captain Charles Johnson (the first chronicler of their adventures, once thought to be a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe) to the present, being recounted in countless stories, songs, novels, plays, movies, and children’s books.2 The enduring fascination of their story has been doubtless the result of their gender, of their irruption into a quintessentially male world, and of the titillation of their adventures in a highly eroticized environment. They have retained their hold on the popular imagination because of the protean nature of what is known of their personalities and adventures: just enough documentation of their escapades has survived to anchor them firmly in the history of the Caribbean at a specific time and place; enough remains tantalizingly in mystery to give the imagination endless wings.

Suggested Citation

  • Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, 2001. "Cross-Dressing on the Margins of Empire," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert & Ivette Romero-Cesareo (ed.), Women at Sea, chapter 0, pages 59-97, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-08515-3_4
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-08515-3_4
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