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

The dramatic untold story of the wife of the famous pirate Captain Kidd, charting her transformation from New York socialite to international outlaw during the Golden Age of Piracy

Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates to ever prowl the seas. But few know that Kidd had an accomplice, a behind-the-scenes player who enabled his plundering and helped him outpace his enemies.

That accomplice was his wife, Sarah Kidd, a well-to-do woman whose extraordinary life is a lesson is survival, resilience and resourcefulness. Twice widowed by twenty-one, and operating within the strictures of polite society in seventeenth and eighteenth century New York, Sarah secretly aided and abetted her husband, fighting alongside him against his accusers. More remarkable still is that Sarah not only survived the tragedy wrought by her infamous husband’s deeds, but went on to live a successful and productive life as one of New York’s most prominent and respectable citizens.

Marshalling in newly discovered primary source documents from archives in London, New York and Boston, historian and journalist Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos reconstructs the extraordinary life of Sarah Kidd, uncovering a rare example of the kind of life that pirate wives lived during the "Golden Age of Piracy." Beginning in 1684, when Sarah arrived in New York at the age of fourteen with her father and two brothers, to her death at the age of seventy-four, hers is a compelling tale of love, marriage, motherhood and survival. This landmark work in women’s history weaves together the personal and the epic in a sweeping historical story of romance and adventure.