17th-century 20th-century adult adventure age-of-sail book british british-fiction british-literature caribbean childrens classic classic-fiction classics england fiction heroes historical historical-fiction historical-novel italian jamaica literature maritime modern-lit nautical nautical-fiction novel novels pirate pirates pjk romance sailing sea-stories seventeenth-century sf ships swashbuckler swashbuckling thriller

Peter Blood is a physician and an English gentleman who becomes a pirate out of a rankling sense of injustice. Barely escaping the gallows after his arrest for treating wounded rebels who were fighting the oppressive King James, Blood flees England and becomes enslaved on a Barbados plantation of buccaneers. When he escapes, no ship sailing the Spanish Main is safe from Blood and his companions. Abounding with adventure, color, romance, and strong social commentary on the evils of slavery and the dangers of intolerance, this classic adventure is a story about how oppression drives men to desperate actions, how fate plays a hand in everyone's life, and how love is ultimately the greatest power of all.

Edited with an introduction by Gary Hoppenstand.