The story of Jack Ballister's fortunes
Betrayed by a wicked guardian, an English orphan finds himself kidnapped and set aboard a ship bound for the New World. Jack Ballister's dramatic adventures unfold in the American South of 1719, where the young hero is sold into slavery on a Virginia tobacco plantation. There he encounters a sinister plot, hatched by a savage crew of pirates under the command of none other than Captain Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard. The New York Times greeted this rousing tale's publication with praise, calling it "a rattling good book . . . as full of adventure as the most exacting reader of romance could wish, and withal as healthy and clean, although it is founded on kidnapping and piracy." Author