Treasure Light Press

24/09/2024

“Captain Keitt” by Howard Pyle, from the frontispiece to The Ruby of Kishmoor (New Yor: Harper & Brothers, 1908) by Howard Pyle. Author’s collection. Arguable only a few illus…

19/09/2024

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, some original, literary, and Hollywood buccaneer language of captains exhorting their crews! “Yes, follow me and doe not lye behind, for if I doe amise* You will…

20/08/2024

Latest blog post. :-)

Examples of late 17th century fencing smallsword techniques displayed on an imagined shore of France, doubtless along the Mediterranean, with a sea battle taking place in the offing. From Le Maistr…

22/07/2024

More great poetry by an old friend and Teammate. :-) Available on Amazon.

02/07/2024

29/03/2024

A quick update on our first publishing project here at Treasure Light Press. Our annotations for Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini are roughly 90% complete. We're looking at a hardcover edition with approximately 300 illustrations, and annotations and appendices with a word count greater than the novel itself. It's been a fun project. More news to follow over the next year as the manuscript goes to editing and actual production begins.

28/03/2024

Latest blog post from our annotator. Facebook wasn't loading the preview image correctly, thus the jury-rig. :-)

Howard Pyle’s Famous “An Attack on a Spanish Galleon” — and Some Real Galleons Too!

https://benersonlittle.com/2024/03/27/howard-pyles-famous-an-attack-on-a-spanish-galleon-and-some-real-galleons-too/

17/03/2024

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

22/12/2023

Because Santa was once a pirate... 😀

Cookies and photo by Bree Little. 😀

15/12/2023

Fortune's Whelp, by our annotator and jack-of-all-trades, is now available as an audio book on Audible and Amazon! Almost thirteen hours of swashbuckling escapades at sea and ashore! Penmore Press.

A five minute sample of chapter one is also available on Audible.

07/12/2023

Annual holiday re-post. ☠️🎄😁

Classic romanticized buccaneers! The pirate captain and his woman ashore on a Caribbean island or an isolated part of the Main, perhaps to share plunder or while careening, or simply to celebrate t…

04/12/2023

It's time for our annotator's annual obligatory holiday marketing post! 🙂 🎁🎄🏴‍☠️ All titles below are available from Amazon, and all of my non-fiction, including titles not shown below, are available from a variety of other vendors as well. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about any of them.

19/09/2023

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'm re-posting some authentic “pirate language” excerpted from the journal of a buccaneer believed to be Edward Povey, written a during piratical expedition to the South Sea in the early 1680s. Povey’s unedited personal journal is one of the most authentic sources of “pirate language” in English. The image is an original eyewitness illustration of a 1680s buccaneer.

“A Barkque wee gave chase to butt could nott fetch her upp. she seeing all our cannoes getts into Pennamau and makes alarme. their was by Relacion putt on board the shipp and Barkques which came out to fight us 300 Soldados and Armed men. wee had about 3 howers dispute and tooke them all. wee killed and wounded many men. And Brave vallient capt. Peter Harriss was shott in his cannoe through both his leggs, bordeing of a greate shipp. their was nott any gott cleare only on [one] small Barkque that rann into Pennamau againe. itt being all done and Quiatt, the Spanish Gen'll being kill'd wee tooke his Chief captaine, one capt. Berralto, who being an Antient Seaman in those seas we caused him to be our Pylott, he being the commdr. of that shipp that carried away the Riches from Pennamau to Limma about 12 years since, that same time when Sr. Henry Morgan tooke Pennamau. this capt. Berralto was much burnt, and his peopple most of them kill'd and blowne upp, for as thay fought us thay had scatter'd loose powder on their decks, which tooke a fier by some accident or other, that wee seeing itt borded them and tooke them. these 7 sayle of shipps we tooke att Pennamau was not above half unloded. their lading was flower, linnen and woolen cloath, one greate shipp half laden with Iron. wee desierd of capt. Berralto which wear the best saylors. he told us on his word the Trinnity was the best in the South Seas, soe wee pitched on her for Admirall, putting capt. Harriss abord that was wounded. the Doctors cutting of one legg itt fester'd so that itt pleased god he died, so wee lost that Valliant brave Soldiar. then wee putt in capt. Rich'd Sawlkings into the Shipp Trinity and made him Our Admirall.”

“[A]bout the middle of August one night, as the greate shipp had us in a towe, we saw a saile in the darke. wee lett goe their towe, and made what saile we could to her, comes in half a hower up with her, and ha'ls her. Shee fierd a Harkquebus att us, att which wee presented them with a whole Volley; she fier severall small gunns at us, and wounded 3 men. one of them after-wards died. wee laid her aboard and tooke her. She had about 30 hands in her, fitted out for an Armadillo to come downe to the Isle of Plate, to see what a posture wee lay in; their was on Borde 2 very Honorable gentlemen, which came out for ther Pleasure to see us, wee being term'd amounge them a strainge sort of Peopple and cal'd by the name of Laddron [Ladrones, that is, thieves, a common Spanish term for pirates—Povey is making a joke.].”

“[W]ee had two men of war cannoes gon to windward for goates and had found, by relacion, 150 fatt ones, butt sleepeing alnight by a fier att the Sea Side and in the morning went to fetch their goates, lookeing out to se if the Sea weir cleare of shipps Spyed within 3 leagues of the Island 3 greate saile of Shipps, Admirall, Vise Adm'll and Rear Adm'll; seeing thiss, made what hast they could to their cannoes and soe on borde shipp, leaveing all their goates behind them bound. as soone as thay came near the Shipp thay warned us with 3 Motions, that wee understoode their was 3 saile. wee gott all our peopple that weir on shore off and what other things wee could, gott our anchor on bord, had nott time to gett the Other butt lett him slipp, hoysted in Our launch and canno's. by thiss time thay weir came within sight of us; so near that wee could se a weapon florrished on the quarter deck of the Adm'll. wee understoode wee had left one of our Strikears on shore that had gott under a tree to Sleepe, sent a cannoe for him but could not finde him, soe came of to the Shipp and left him their. [This was Will, the Moskito striker. His marooning may have helped to inspire Robinson Crusoe.] these 3 shipps Clings the wind and stands After us. the reare Adm'll which was the least had 12 gunns, their Vise Adm'll 16 and their Adm'll 24. Our new capt., being Jno. Watkins, would have gon aborde the Adm'll if the Party had beene willing; wee could wronge them by sayling att our Pleasures, bye or large, soe that wee played with them a day and a night. then wee concluded twas our time to goe downe and take Arrica, the Place that wee made an attempt att before.”

17/09/2023

Re-posted for fun, and because I updated it recently after accidentally discovering that famous film fencing choreographer Fred Cavens (Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, and more than fifty other films) had figured something out seven years before I was born and sixty-six years before I did (although apparently no one else I know of had). The first half of the blog post is devoted to the history behind the novel and N. C. Wyeth's famous painting for the dust jacket, but the second is devoted to figuring out an "esquive" (a displacement) as described by Rafael Sabatini in his description of the duel at the climax of The Black Swan. There is nothing new in fencing, and sooner or later you'll discover that your brilliant discovery was known to fencers in the past, even if it's been forgotten or neglected for decades. 🙂

“The Duel on the Beach” by N. C. Wyeth. The painting was used for the 1931 magazine illustration of the same name, for the dust jacket of the 1932 US edition, and also the frontispiece …

25/12/2022

Annual Holiday Re-Post. 😃☃️🎄

Errol Flynn as Captain Peter Blood commanding the Arabella in her final action. (Warner Bros., 1935.) With the floor beneath the tree still looking like the decks of the Arabella just before she sa…

11/12/2022

Classic romanticized buccaneers! The pirate captain and his woman ashore on a Caribbean island or an isolated part of the Main, perhaps to share plunder or while careening, or simply to celebrate t…

11/12/2022

Annual holiday re-post. :-)

Classic romanticized buccaneers! The pirate captain and his woman ashore on a Caribbean island or an isolated part of the Main, perhaps to share plunder or while careening, or simply to celebrate t…

12/10/2022

Most of us have imagined something like this, I think. :-)

Comic by William Steig, 1952. I’ve seen myself in comics before — Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, Peanuts, Shoe, Hagar the Horrible, Popeye, and even in an imagined sense in Buzz Saw…

19/09/2022

More for Talk Like a Pirate [or Buccaneer!] Day!
Several authors over the past quarter century, myself included, have identified Robert Newton as the most significant origin of caricatured "pirate speech" aka "talk like a Hollywood pirate."

Newton starred first in Disney's Treasure Island as Long John Silver, followed by two more pirate films, reprising his role in one of them as Long John Silver, and then again in a TV series. The earliest non-fiction author I recall identifying Newton as the origin of our idea of pirate speech is David Cordingly in 1997.

However, the real credit should probably go to George MacDonald Fraser in his comic novel The Pyrates, 1983/84, in which he clearly identifies the origin of Hollywood pirate speech as Robert Newton and his iconic West Country accent. 🙂

19/09/2022

Happy Talk Like a Pirate [or Buccaneer!] Day!

“The Canoes wherein were thirty five Men out-rowed the Boat, and Landed before day, and just upon day light they discerned the Patroule, which is kept on the Bay; and at this time did consist of about 150 Horse, who deriving Courage from their advantage in numbers, hemmed us in a ring, not doubting to have an easie conquest over so few Men, and rid boldly up to us; our Commander considering we were but thirty five, ordered that but six Men should Fire at once on the Enemy, to keep the longer from a close Fight; being provided of no other Arms then a Fuzee and a Pistol, as also knowing our Party would in a little time come up to our rescue, but whether they did or no, this was our resolution, to turn our backs on the water-side and every Man maintain his ground, or fall upon the spot he stood on. By this time they were come pretty near, and I believe scarce a shot flew in vain, and so quick, having Cartridges alway fitted for our small Arms, that scarce two Vollies were fired before those that had discharged were ready loaded for them again, that he was happiest among them that got furthest behind; thus we battered them severely, which they, after they had made a stand to carry off their dead, not liking, retreated in disorder, doing no other damage than wounding one Man. We followed the chase, though but leisurely, that our Men who been set on shoar by the Boat, might come up with us, which in a little time they did, following us, by the track of our Feet and tops of the Cartridges...[Later]...So we detached out a small party for a forlorn, supposing we must have fought our way through; but as soon as we began to pink some of their Jackets for them with our Fuzees, they got out of our reach, and went to their ruin’d Town leaving us to go peaceably on Board our Ship. When we came on Board, we sent ashoar a great number of our Prisoners, and amongst the rest Don Thomas d’Aldondony, Captain Peralta, Captain Don Juan, and many others, some of them being Merchants, which we had taken and kept on board, to learn them to eat Montego and Doweboys.”

—William Dick, The Adventures of Capt. Barth. Sharp, And Others, in the South Sea, 1684

31/07/2022

Outstanding poetry by an old friend and former Teammate!

The Lightning and the Gale

08/06/2022

The remains were found near the San José galleon, which was sunk by the British in 1708.

01/04/2022

An update. :-)

A few random items from the collection, including the volume of Horace and the silver-hilted smallsword discussed below. Last year, after a long journey of intellectual curiosity, investigation wit…

30/03/2022

The duel on the beach in Captain Blood, clearly posed in reference and homage to the similar paintings of Howard Pyle and some of his former students. Original Warner Bros. publicity still, 1935. A…