Captain Charles Johnson and The General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, by Captain Charles Johnson first went on sale in May 1724. Since then it has been reproduced in a number of editions, at least three in Johnson's own lifetime, and at least three in the 20th century. Johnson's General History, as it is usually known, has become the classic text for the study of the history of piracy. No other source from the time of the Golden Age gives us as much material in so readable a form. The general history contained the stories of classic pirates like Avery and Blackbeard, but also lesser known, and no less shocking pirates like Bonny and Read, whose stories printed in the General History caused a sensation.

Captain Charles Johnson is himself though one of the greatest enigmas facing the student of pirate history. Nobody knows for sure who he was. Various theories have been put forward and rebuffed, but the one which has stuck the best is the one first really propounded in 1939 by John Robert Moore's Defoe in the Pillory and other studies. Moore argued, based on his own studies of the Defoe canon, that Captain Johnson was none other than the celebrated novelist Daniel Defoe (1660-1731). So convincing were Moore's arguments that many libraries re-catalogued the General History as Defoe's work.

In 1988 P.N. Furbank and W.R. Owens published a work which rocked academia as much as Moore's had in 1939. Their The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe was ostensibly written to call for a re-evaluation of just how many works were attirubted to Defoe by different biographers and bibliographers, but was in a large part an attack on Moore and his assertion that Defoe wrote the General History. Their work is so completely damning that it is difficult to believe Defoe had anything to do with Johnson's work.

However, many books, periodicals and websites still refer to the General History as having been written by Defoe or by "Captain Johnson (most likely Daniel Defoe)". The evidence against Defoe being the author of the General History need not be confined to the destruction of Moore's theories, though the evidence in favour of Defoe's authorship seems to have been pretty well covered by Moore. For my own part, I do not believe that Defoe was responsible for the General History, but since the matter is so complex and so widely debated I have decided to summarise the evidence for both sides of the argument and allow the reader of this website to make up their own mind.

Daniel Defoe 1660-1731

In Favour of Defoe's having written the General History	Against Defoe's having written the General History
Defoe was clearly interested in pirates. His other known works include Robinson Crusoe - based on the story of buccaneer Alexander Selkirk - and The life, adventures and pyracies of the famous Captain Singleton.	The incredible popularity of the General History and the number of other works on pirates published in that era show clearly that an interest in piracy was not exclusive to Defoe.
Nobody else can be conclusively shown to have written the General History, especially not the playwright Charles Johnson.	While it is unlikely that the playwright Charles Johnson wrote the General History he should not be immediately dismissed. He was the author of the 1713 play The Successful Pirate. In A Book of Scoundrels by Charles Whibley we are told that Captain Charles Johnson, writing in his later work A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers etc would have us believe that he WAS the same Charles Johnson who wrote the Successful Pirate.
Moore tells us that Johnson worked for Applebee's Journal, and thus had access to the prisoners of Newgate which provided the basis for much of the General History	Anyone who wanted could have access to Newgate. There is no hard evidence that Johnson worked for Applebee's. Pirates, if they made it back to England for trial, were generally imprisoned in the Marshalsea Prison, not Newgate.
Moore tells us that Defoe often used an alias or nom-de-plume	Defoe probably did use an alias, many writers of the time did, but that does not mean he used the alias "Captain Charles Johnson". Moore, by 1960, had attributed 570 works to the pen of Daniel Defoe. Chalmers in 1790 attributed only 81. Some of the works later attributed to Defoe may well have been written by him, but the idea that Defoe almost always used an alias is a result of the attribution to him of extra works by later bibliographers.
Moore tells us that the style of the General History is so similar to other works by Defoe that the conclusion is obvious.	Moore fails to make clear that the comparisons in style are being made with works attributed to Defoe by Moore himself and other bibliographers. A comparison of the General History to one of Defoe's definitely accredited works, say Robinson Crusoe will not reveal half so many similarities. Crucially, Moore also makes comparisons which hold true for many authors of the age - he does not distinguish between indicators of style which are common to the period and those which are specifically Defoean. The comparison of styles was the main support of Moore's theory, and it's destruction must bring about, more than anything, its downfall.
Defoe was well travelled, as the author of the General History clearly was.	Many people were well travelled. I personally believe that a study and analysis of the stories of Anne Bonny and Mary Read contained in the General History shows that they were either made up (which they were not) or that their author was in the West Indies at the time of or shortly after their trial in 1720. Defoe was not as far as I have been able to ascertain. Other incidents in other stories also go to indicate that Johnson was probably in the Americas at some time in the 1720s.
Defoe knew a great deal about piracy.	True, but examination of two other works (The King of the Pirates and An Account of the Conduct and Proceedings of the Late John Gow) which Moore includes in his Defoe bibliography (though they seem to have been put forward first by William Lee in 1869) reveals a number of discrepancies. Defoe knew a great deal about piracy, but his alleged works do not agree with one another.
The fourth and complete edition of the General History was published in 1726, five years before Defoe died.	Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers etc. did not appear until 1734, three years after Defoe's death.

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