This young adult novel was published in 2001. Theisen attributes the General History to Daniel Defoe, whom he says met Anne Bonny personally. He says Anne was still alive at the time of its writing, and Defoe was not detailed about her life in order to protect her. Most of the story is owed to Mistress of the Seas.
Mary Read is born around 1680. Jack Rackham leaves England as a kid and sails with a captain who falls in love with him. At some point he joins the crew of Charles Vane, also as his boyfriend.
Anne’s parents are William and Marie Cormac. Marie is Irish, but it seems William is Scottish, because his marriage was in Scotland. Marie spends six months in jail, wrongly accused of stealing the spoons. Anne is dressed as a boy and called Andrew beginning when she is two. The story opens with the family arriving in Charleston. Stede Bonnet is already a famous pirate. In Charleston William buys a rice plantation and hires Clara and Charley Fourfeathers, who is Sioux. An effort is made to demonize Clara, who says black people don’t have souls, and blackmails Anne’s parents after Marie confesses her past to her.
William buys stolen goods from James “Bonn”, who is in his thirties when Anne is 14. Anne feels like a trapped princess and hates playing the harpsichord, so she starts dressing as a boy and hanging out with a gang of juvenile delinquents. However, after she murders Clara, she is perfectly willing to take full advantage of being rich, and she helps her father throw fancy parties to ingratiate herself to their rich neighbors, whom he bribes and lies to so Anne will get off. She forsakes her street urchin friend for a rich boy who has a fencing teacher uncle.
Her urchin friends threaten to tell her father about her past dressing as a boy, which as it turns out is against the law. Instead of doing anything about it, Anne meets James at a bar. She asks him to marry her and they run off. For some reason she addresses him as Bonn even after they are married, and he calls her Bonny. William publicly accuses Anne of murdering her mother, and James and Anne sail to Nassau. At a tavern, the barkeeper tells Anne that James is a traitor. A patron tells Anne why, but it is glossed over.
Henry Jenning’s girlfriend is Carlova’s Meg, who killed her husband, which is a different backstory than she had in Mistress of the Seas. Theisen also uses Susan Baker‘s Beth, she of the botched Cesarean section (instead of Carlova’s original Bess), except that Theisen makes her a native of Barcelona who fled to Mexico. Anne beats Henry in a duel, and he offers to personally protect her since she doesn’t have a man to do it (even though she has not split up with James). Anne is still somewhat sheltered and she gets offended by some of Henry’s and the other Nassau residents’ behavior. She refuses Henry’s offer until she is set upon by a lecherous mob, at which point she agrees to move in with him and Meg. Here Anne learns to use a diaphragm.
Jack enters the picture when Charles Vane’s crew blows into town. Jack is an effeminate hairdresser who got the name Calico Jack from his lucky calico pants, which he never washes because he claims they are bulletproof. Jack kisses Anne at their welcome party, asking for permission from Henry but not Anne. When the ship leaves, Anne comes on board. Jack says she is the first woman he has fallen in love with. Charles is voted out of office, and Anne and another character nominate Jack. Anne tells Jack to dispose of Charles’s supporters along with him, to avoid their loyal crew being contaminated.
The pirates attack the Jewel carrying Michael Radcliff. Instead of beginning a new romantic subplot (thank God), Anne gives him some money to start a new life. One of the sailors who joins the pirates sexually assaults Anne, who kills him. After that she asserts herself as the leader of the gang, allowing Jack to become an opium junkie.
They arrive in Nassau to learn that Woodes Rogers is due to arrive soon. Anne is immediately against surrendering, and she flees with a few others. James shows up in a disguise, intending to turn in Anne for the bounty money. Woodes refuses to accept her because he doesn’t want James to turn in his wife. She eventually makes it back to Jack’s ship, where the crew in the meantime have picked up Mary, who was marooned on an island. Theisen says this is 1718. There are about seventy people on the crew, but somehow only Anne figures out that Mary is a woman. They start sleeping together. Jack finds out Anne is cheating on him and cries and becomes depressed, which she doesn’t seem to care about at all. Somehow, for some reason, the law of the sea tolerates male homosexuality but lesbians should be put to death. Everyone knows Anne and Mary are sleeping together but they think Mary is a man. Jack spirals further into his addiction problems but neither Anne nor Mary make any effort to talk to him about any of this.
Mary’s womanliness is revealed to the crew when she and Anne stage a spectacle to capture a ship by pretending to be ghosts, who are also naked for some reason. Despite the supposed fact that sailors must murder lesbians, absolutely nobody cares and absolutely nothing happens. Charles blames Anne for Jack’s condition since she left him for Mary. Anne says she didn’t leave him, he left her, and opium is to blame for his state. (Bizarrely, Jack addresses Charles as “Vane” even though they were lovers.) Charles quits his job and starts anew with command of a different ship, but gets arrested and hanged. Finally Anne and Mary nurse Jack back to sobriety and he throws his opium in the sea.
Mary gets pregnant. Suddenly we learn that she and Jack have slept together, but she tells Anne it isn’t his. They are pursued by Carlova’s “Charles” Barnet and imprisoned in Jamaica. Anne and Mary are tried in January 1721 before the execution of Jack, who is present for the trial. Anne claims that both she and Mary are pregnant, and Michael Radcliffe comes to examine them and confirms the claim. Mary dies before her child is born. Theisen suggests that Anne may have returned to piracy as Bartholomew Roberts.
Depictions of John Rackam, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read 