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A Pirate of Exquisite Mind

The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer

Diana Preston - Author

Michael Preston - Author

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Seventeenth-century pirate genius William Dampier sailed around the world three times when crossing the Pacific was a major feat, was the first explorer to visit all five continents, and reached Australia eighty years before Captain Cook. His exploits created a sensation in Europe. Swift and Defoe used his experiences in writing Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. Darwin incorporated his concept of "sub-species" into the theory of evolution. Dampier's description of breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh's voyage on the Bounty. He was so influential that today he has more than one thousand entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, including such words as chopsticks, barbecue, and kumquat. Anthropologists still use his work.

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind Acknowledgments
Prologue

Part I: The Adventurer
I. A Self-Conceited Young Man
II. A Great Prospect of Getting Money Here
III. To Seek a Subsistence
IV. A Door to the South Seas

Part II: The Buccaneer
V. That Sacred Hunger of Gold
VI. Two Fat Monkeys
VII. The Bachelor's Delight
VIII. The Enchanted Islands
IX. We Ran for It

Part III: The Traveler
X. You Would Have Poisened Them
XI. As White as Milk and as Soft as Cream
XII. This Mad Crew
XIII. New-Gotten Library
XIV. Our Little Ark
XV. Gut Rot and Gunpowder
XVI. The Painted Prince

Part IV: The Celebrity
XVII. The Rover's Return
XVIII. Good Copy
XIX. Dampier's Voyage Takes so Wonderfully
XX. Kiss My Arse
XXI. Shark's Bay
XXII. A Flame of Fire
XXIII. Not a Fit Person

Part V: The Ancient Mariner
XXIV. Brandy Enough
XXV. The Manila Galleon at Last
Epilogue

Notes and Sources
Bibliography
Art Credits
Index