Captain Charles Johnson

Captain Charles Johnson was the British author of the 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, whose identity remains a mystery.

[3] English naval historian David Cordingly writes: "It has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates.

There has been no record found of anyone with the name Charles Johnson serving as a captain in any capacity, save forty-two years before the publication of A General History.

[6]: 129 In 1932, literary scholar and writer John Robert Moore posited that Daniel Defoe be acknowledged the author of A General History.

Moore argued that Defoe's interest in subjects such as "seafaring" and criminals (including pirates[7]) shows that A General History falls squarely into his repertoire.

Another point that Moore counted on to validate his claims was that many authors, to include historians, had used A General History of the Pyrates as a source of information for their own writings.

[11] The original publisher Charles Rivington[3] emphasized the fact that the catalogue included stories of "the remarkable ACTIONS and ADVENTURES of the two Female Pyrates, Mary Read and Anne Bonny"[14] A second edition came out within a few months, vastly enlarged and most likely assembled from writings by other authors.

A General History of the Pyrates continues to be reprinted in many different editions, often with additional commentary, sometimes published under Charles Johnson's name and sometimes under Daniel Defoe's name.