This article appeared in the July 1947 issue of Cavalcade and briefly summarizes Johnson’s lives of Mary Read and Anne Bonny.
Mary’s brother dies at 10 months old. Mary joins the army at age 14 and as a man she goes by the name Mat. She tells the Fleming she’s a woman by whispering to him in the middle of the night. When she is captured and pressed by pirates, it happens near the Bahamas.
Anne’s father disguises her as a boy when they leave for Carolina, and in Carolina she continues to be passed off as his nephew, until she hits puberty and uneventfully starts dressing as a woman.
Mary and Jack are on the same privateer fitted out by Woodes Rogers. Jack leads the mutiny that results in their return to piracy. When Mary falls in love with the second guy, she tells him she’s a woman by stripping naked in front of him.
Captain Barnet is sent after them by Woodes Rogers. Instead of Mary shooting at the reluctant crew, Griffen-Foley writes that Anne “cut them down with her cutlass.” Griffen-Foley also repeats Frédéric Boutet’s assertion that Jack and the officers were hanged by their feet instead of their necks.
Depictions of John Rackam, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read 