Ghost Journeys and Phantom Books: Francisco de Seyxas y Lovera’s Elusive Library of Pirates

This article examines a collection of approximately 30 print and manuscript works on piracy that Francisco de Seyxas y Lovera cites in Piratas y contrabandistas de ambas Indias, a Spanish history of piracy completed in 1693, first published in 2011. These texts, largely Northern European in origin, are today unknown, having either evaded the bibliographic record or never existed. The author examines how Seyxas employs these sources, locates Piratas y contrabandistas within the larger textual production arising from overseas travel in the seventeenth century, and considers what Seyxas’ bibliography can potentially offer scholars of the Early Modern maritime world.