Publications

As well as numerous articles and short pieces in popular periodicals Ed Fox has published two books, both of which were favourably reviewed and have proved popular with readers.

Pirates of the West Country (Tempus, 2007) is an overview of piracy committed around the coasts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Gloucestershire, and piracy committed overseas by pirates from those counties, from the medieval period up to the eighteenth century. It includes accounts of the pirate strongholds at Studland Bay in Dorset and Falmouth, Cornwall; the pirate king of Lundy Island; the pirate who had an admiral arrested; circumnavigators William Dampier and Woodes Rogers; Blackbeard; and many others.

The King of the Pirates, the swashbuckling career of Henry Every (History Press, 2008) is the only full length biography of the most successful pirate of the seventeenth century. Henry Every’s short but spectacular career came within a hair’s breadth of ending English settlement in India, before he escaped into quiet obscurity with a fortune in Oriental gold. Every’s life has been shrouded in myth and misinformation since his disappearance, but in this book Ed has gathered archival evidence to tell the true story of one of history’s greatest criminals.