I am grateful for the guidance of Mark Willenbrock (madaboutmorocco.com), whose unique view of his adoptive home brought a whole new dimension to Morocco. (May I underscore here Miss Russell’s own assertion, that this story should be regarded as a work of fiction? One will in fact find the country of Morocco, and its city of Salé, warm and welcoming, being neither xenophobic nor infested with pirates – filmic, Muslim, or otherwise.) And thanks again to Louisa Pittman, whose skill in the rigging is only excelled by her willingness to give countless hours to help a landlubber writer.
The chapter headings are from The Pirates of Penzance, by W. S. Gilbert, except for chapter 14. “I need truth, and some aspirin” is the sentiment of Álvaro de Campos, one of the faces of Fernando Pessoa, in an untitled poem dated 14 March 1931, found in the collection edited and translated by Richard Zenith, A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe. The lines from Pessoa’s “Maritime Ode” in chapter 19 also come from Zenith’s translation.
The good folk at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, along with Shelly Stamp, professor of film and media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, helped me get the cameras turning. Although thus far we have not been able to unearth a copy of that great lost film of the silent era, Pirate King.