December 9, 1719 - Read the True Story of the Pirate King of Madagascar
This Day is publish’d,
The King of Pirates: Being an Account of the famous Enterprizes of Capt. Avery, the Mock King of Madagascar. With his Rambles and Piracies; wherin all the Sham-Accounts formerly publish’d of him are detected. In Two Letters from himself; one during his Stay at Madagascar, and one since his Escape from thence. Printed for A. Bettesworth in Pater-noster Row, C. King in Westminster-Hall, J. Brotherton and W. Meadows in Cornhill, W. Chetwood in Covent-Gardem, and sold by W. Boreham in Pater-noster Row. Price 1s. 6d.
Weekly Packet (December 5-12, 1719)
[Note: ESTC T69707. This work has thought by many Defoe bibliographers to be by Daniel Defoe, though the attribution has been disputed by Furbank and Owens. J. R. Moore gives the publication date of this work as December 10, but there was an advertisement in the Daily Post of December 7 announcing “To-morrow will be publish’d,” which would seem to place publication a few days earlier than Moore has it. The phrase “today is published” has to be approached with some caution in these advertisements, though, since “published” can mean something more like “available for sale to the public” than “released for the very first time.” At any rate, The King of Pirates was probably published around this time 300 years ago. A scan of one of the Boston Public Library’s copies, from the collection of William P. Trent (DEFOE 21 .K51 1720) is available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/kingofpiratesbei00defo/page/n5]
