The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd

Historian Geanacopoulos (The Pirate Next Door) delivers a colorful biography of Sarah Kidd née Bradley, the wife and “closest confidante” of privateer William Kidd. The daughter of a widowed sea captain, Sarah emigrated from England to New York with her family in 1684. Her father partnered with a wealthy merchant named William Cox and arranged Cox’s marriage to Sarah. Though Cox helped Sarah open a shop for “imported high-end goods” in Manhattan, she was not entitled to it when he died in 1689. Recognizing that “a woman’s place in colonial society was through her husband,” Sarah quickly remarried but soon met and fell in love with Captain Kidd, a privateer “hired to legally plunder and seize enemy French ships.” After her second husband’s death, Sarah and Kidd married, and he acquired a lucrative commission to hunt French ships and pirates in the Indian Ocean. The mission proved to be his downfall, however, when he was convicted of “turning pirate” and hanged in 1701; Sarah took the location of Kidd’s buried treasure to her death 40 years later. Though Sarah remains a somewhat enigmatic figure, Geanacopoulos packs the narrative with intriguing details about piracy and privateering in colonial America. This seafaring tale fascinates. Agent: Katherine Flynn, Kneerim & Williams Agency. (Nov.)