One of the things I found fascinating about the narratives about Bonny and Read in the General History is the way it plays to specific audience expectations and reactions. Now I'm wondering if anyone has specifically studied it in the context of narrative conventions around "historical fictions" of the 18th century. That is, texts that are overtly fictional (as opposed to overtly claiming to be "true") but presented in the form of a reported narrative or even a first-person account.
LHMP
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Continuing our series about Anne Bonny and Mary Read, this installment sorts out conflicting reports of Rackham's crew and discusses the existing popular literature about women cross-dressing in combat or at sea that would have been available as a model for the fictionalization of Bonny and Read's lives.
Yesterday I recorded an extensive interview about the "afterlife" of Bonny and Read that will be included in the upcoming pocast that accompanies this series.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 337 - On the Shelf for March 2026 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/03/07)
Welcome to On the Shelf for March 2026.
By pure coincidence, I'm going to be posting two different series interleaved on the blog for the next month or so. They're quite different in nature! The Lesbian Historic Motif Project will be looking into the mythology around early 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read (starting with this post), while an entire separate blog series will be starting shortly presenting The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category.
This finishes up the cluster of articles I've been reading on lesbianism in pornography. The current article points out an interesting contrast in the view of lesbian sex depicted in pornography versus that depicted in "learned" texts, especially medical manuals.
Because the LHMP entries aren't set up to include images (I could have sworn they were, but I'm not seeing the controls currently), in addition to including a link to the Wikimedia Commons file for the engraving of Read and Bonny, I'm including it here.
Just two more posts from the group of articles on pornography. Then I'll have a fun series on a primary source, which will tie in with a planned podcast. (Got to get working on that podcast script!)
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 336 – Aye, There’s the Rub - transcript
(Originally aired 2026/02/21)
This podcast is going to include discussions of sexual techniques, as well as vocabulary. Just FYI.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 335 - On the Shelf for February 2026 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2026/02/09)
Welcome to On the Shelf for February 2026.
Having concluded that I'm going to postpone the On the Shelf podcast for a day or two in hopes that I'll get all the story contracts back and can announce the line-up in the show, I'm finishing up the last of the current prepared set of blogs with this exploration into why lesbian convent pornography was quite so popular in 18th century France.
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