Charles Ellms

Charles Ellms was the credited compiler of The Pirates Own Book, first published in 1837, a popular nineteenth-century collection of pirate lives, trials, captures, and maritime crimes. The book gathered earlier accounts of well-known figures such as Lafitte, Kidd, Roberts, Gow, and the Ladrone pirates for a readership eager for criminal biography and sea adventure. Little secure biographical information about Ellms himself is readily established, but his compilation became part of the long print tradition that carried pirate history into popular culture.