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Useful Publications

Most links are to Amazon.com

There was another element of propriety in the frequent visits of Buccaneers who called to dispose of their plunder on the wharfs of Port Royal, and whose personal gallantry and quasi-crusade against Spain were no mean recommendations. Moreover, many of them were gentlemen by birth, and in every way fitted to mingle with the higher class of residents.
-- Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies

General Information About the Period

• The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon - A companion book to her Outlander novels with lots of information about the period, a great bibliography, and useful thoughts on research and writing.

• The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun - Tables of important events by year - a great resource if you want to see when a particular trend started or to see what was going on in a particular year.

• A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O'Brian ed. by Dean King

• What Jane Austin Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool - Mostly 19th century, but some of it is relevant to the 18th century, and he's pretty good about giving timeframes - facts and interesting tidbits about every day life

• Food in History by Reay Tannahill

• 1700: Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller

• 1688: A Global History by John E Wills

• The Prospect Before Her: History of Women in Western Europe, 1500-1800 by Olwen Hufton

• Restoration London by Liza Picard

• Dr. Johnson's London by Liza Picard

Clothing

• 18th Century Clothing by Bobbie Kalman - A children's book with lots of good illustrations and pictures of re-enactors from Colonial Williamsburg. A useful tip from Diana Gabaldon is to use children's reference books, which are short, easy to read, and accurate enough for fiction.

• Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe by Aileen Ribeiro

• "Let There Be Clothes!" by Lynn Schnurnberger

Ships

• Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World ed. by Richard O'Neill

• The Lore of Ships by Tre Tryckare

• Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation by Alan Gurney

• The Wooden World: The Anatomy of the Georgian Navy by N.A.M. Rodger

• Life Before the Mast: Sailors' eyewitness accounts from the age of fighting ships edited by Jon E. Lewis

• The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor: Or a Key to the Leading of Rigging and to Practical Seamanship by Darcy Lever, 1808

• The Sailor’s Word-Book by Admiral W. H. Smyth, 1867

• Hen-Frigates: Passion and Peril, Nineteenth-Century Women at Sea by Joan Druett

• She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett

• Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Complete Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian, Third Edition by Dean King.

• The Patrick O'Brian Muster Book: Persons, Animals, Ships and Cannon in the Aubrey-Maturin Sea Novels by Anthony Gary Brown

• Sailing Ships and Rigging: with Authentic Plans of Famous Vessels of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Harold A. Underhill
  

Sailors and Pirates

• Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly

• Pirates: Terror on the High Seas from the Caribbean to the South China Sea (A Worldwide Illustrated History) by David Cordingly

• Women Sailors and Sailors' Women : An Untold Maritime History by David Cordingly

• Pirate Wars by Peter Earle

• The Sweet Trade by Elizabeth Garrett - A fictionalized account of Anne Bonny and Mary Read - not high literature, but the research seems fairly solid.

• To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World by Arthur Herman

• A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson

• Any of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books (that's what they're called by the publisher!) - the first one is Master and Commander - These are set later than most piratefic, but they still give a good sense of life at sea, and of Naval life.

• GURP's Swashbucklers by Steffan O'Sullivan - Role Playing Game reference book, for running games set in the 17th/18th centuries or using swashbuckling conventions.

• Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter by Richard Platt - A children's book, but again, that's not necessarily a bad thing - there's a great illustration of a cross-section of a ship in this one.

• Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea : Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 by Marcus Rediker

• Pirates! by Celia Rees

• Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini - Great for picking up the swashbuckling feel.

• Down and Out in Eighteenth Century London by Tim Hitchcock (who is also the founder of the Old Bailey Online project.)

• The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649 - 1815 by N.A.M. Rodger

• The Mammoth Book Of Pirates by Jon E. Lewis

General Writing/Grammar

• The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Inner Workbook) by Julia Cameron

• The Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon

• On Writing by Stephen King

• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

• Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin - Writing exercises to do by yourself or in a writer's group.

• The Art of Fiction: Illustrated from Classic and Modern Texts by David Lodge - Not a writing book per se, but an introduction to different elements and techniques of fiction, with snippets of text as examples.

• Fiction First Aid: Instant Remedies for Novels, Stories, and Scripts by Raymond Obstfeld

• Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

• The Times Guide to Style and Usage

• Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

• Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy published by Writer's Digest.

• Slang through the Ages by Jonathon Green

• The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook

• Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

• Make Your Words Work by Gary Provost

• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldbergw

• Show, Don't Tell byWilliam Noble.

• How To Write Damn Good Novel byJames Frey

• The Writer's Journey byChristopher Vogler

• The Elements of Style by Strunk & White