Edward Teach better known as Blackbeard was one of the most notorious pirates ever to plague the Atlantic coast. He was also one of the most colourful pirates of all time becoming the model for countless blood-&-thunder tales of sea rovers. His daring exploits personal courage terrifying appearance & fourteen wives made him a legend in his own lifetime. The legends & myths about Blackbeard have become wilder rather than tamer in the 250 years since his gory but valiant death at Ocracoke Inlet. It is difficult for historians & all but impossible for the general reader to separate fact from fiction. Author Robert E. Lee has studied virtually every scrap of information available about the pirate & his contemporaries in an attempt to find the real Blackbeard. The result is a fascinating & authoritative study that reads like an exciting swashbuckler. Lee goes beyond the myths & the image Teach so carefully cultivated to reveal a new Blackbeard
- infinitely more interesting as a man than as a legend. In the process he has captured the spirit & character of a vanished age the golden age of piracy.