#ollwy

As of today, it has been exactly 304 years since the day the piracy trials of Ann(e) Bonny and Mary Read were held in Spanish-Town, Jamaica on November 28th, 1720. In honor of this anniversary, I’m sharing the Prologue of my book, Our Legend Lies With You, which is written from Anne Bonny’s perspective about her imprisonment during this time. It directly addresses Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates, an anthology consisting of the “lives” of real pirates, for selling a false narrative of her life to the eighteenth-century English public.

The eBook will be published tomorrow! You can pre-order it here. The paperback will be available to purchase Monday, Dec. 2nd.

I’m happy to announce that my book, Our Legend Lies With You, will be published November 29th, 2024.

I want to thank everyone who has been keeping up with my journey, my friends, my mutuals, and my followers. I know that this is a far cry from what I usually post, but this book has been a labor of love for the past two and a half years, so I’m ready for it to be out in the world!

Summary:

“I am not here to condone our actions, only to recount their consequences.” 1720: The Golden Age of Piracy. Despite the crime being punishable by death, tales of the high seas are flooded with romance and adventure, and nobody’s life is as full of intrigue as the ferocious, seductive one of Anne Bonny. While the world is captivated by her legend, the true woman behind it is much more of an enigma . . . Ann Fulford has spent a lifetime running away from herself. Destitute and unwilling to conform to eighteenth-century colonial culture, she joins John Rackum's pirate crew made up of social outcasts determined to create a place for themselves. However, after two months on the Caribbean Sea, their ship is captured by the English navy, and Ann finds herself stuck inside Spanish-Town Gaol, Jamaica. With inevitable executions just around the corner, there is nothing within the prison walls except the musings of Rackum’s washed-up crew and her own inescapable thoughts... Now at the end of her life, Ann memorializes the people that have come and gone throughout her life, culminating in her guarded nature towards the budding relationship with her shipmate, Maura Reed. As Ann faces the story that she leaves behind, she must also come to terms with the death that lurks beyond. Our Legend Lies With You grapples with the conflicting natures of perspective and identity, and if the self can truly exist when the world sees another. In this debut novel, Lem Finney reimagines the story of some of history’s most famous pirates through an introspective and empathetic lens to prove how our connections with others define who we are and the stories we pass on.

The book will be available on Amazon/Kindle. In U.S. dollars, the eBook is priced at $3.99, paperback at $12.99, hardcover at $23.99. I’m working on setting up a discount for preorders. If you really want to read it but these prices are not within your budget, please DM me and I will find a way to get a free copy to you.

On Friday, November 22, one week before the publication, I will post a link to preorder. Starting Monday, November 25th, I will also post something every day relating to my book up until November 29th, the date of its launch.

The Hardcover version of Our Legend Lies With You will be available to purchase on Amazon on Jan. 17th 2025.

You can purchase the eBook ($3.99) and the Paperback ($12.99) here, but check back in next Friday if you'd like the Hardcover for $23.99 USD.

Thanks to everyone who has purchased my book this far! I feel so honored that people want to read my book.

Summary of OLLWY under the cut:

i wrote a book, and if you’d like to buy it, i’d appreciate support. and send me asks about it. i’d like to be reassured that i have a little community here on tumblr too when i get back, that art is still alive and community is invaluable, and that there are good people sprinkled around however far away who believe in that.

April 28, 1721 ~

303 years ago today, a woman was buried in St. Catherine's Parish in St. Jago de la Vega "Spanish Town", Jamaica under the name Mary Read with only one word to describe her life: pirate.

The names Mary Read and Anne Bonny may be familiar to you. They've become a popular subject in historical fiction about piracy, such as Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Black Sails and Our Flag Means Death (my personal favorite).

Their names have become associated with fierce female pirates who plundered the seas, terrified men, and objected to the conforming roles for women in early 18th century colonial life.

However, those are just legends, embellished over time. What do we even really know about these women?

On May 14, 1724, a book was published under the pseudonym "Captain Charles Johnson" which became known as A General History of the Pyrates. In it details the true, factual lives of names that would become synonymous with the Golden Age of Piracy: Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Black Bart, even coining the famous Jolly Roger. Mary Read and Anne Bonny especially were a huge selling point among the 18th century English aristocracy, as they still are today. Men becoming pirates was believable enough; a violent environment full of greed and disrespect for 'good-natured' society. But two women? It shocked and intrigued audiences alike, and it sold like mad.

These stories defined the perspectives of generations, serving as inspiration from Treasure Island to The Pirates of the Caribbean. With such outlandish, captivating tales of debauchery and misdeeds, it was almost too good to be true!

And it was too good to be true; without so much as a single source beyond trial records, Captain Charles Johnson completely falsified the lives of these pirates into spectacles to feed into the prejudices and perverted fascinations of the white, misogynist, heterosexual, English elite.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read were embellished the most. Petty excuses were made to justify their crossdressing; romantic male interests became the center of their heroism (while sapphic deviations were teased at); bearing their breasts in battle became a bodily chain to their inescapable female fate; they were turned into murderous warriors despite never being charged with murder and only being on the high seas for two months. They were no longer human; they were legends.

So, on April 28, 2023, I wrote a story and called it Our Legend Lies With You. In it, I reimagined the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read as Ann Fulford and Maura Reed. I used dates and accounts of witnesses from the original court documents of Anne and Mary's trial to frame their experiences. The rest is a fictitious account to show you what could have happened.

The novella will be self-published by me, Lem Finney, on May 14, 2024 on Amazon, to mark the 300th anniversary of The General History's original publication. 300 years later, I hope I can provide readers with a different way of looking at history by reimagining the voices of people who have been erased and rewritten. It may not be entirely true, but I believe there is truth in it.