Blackbeard amusement park rides. Much of what is known about him can be sourced to Charles Johnson's "A General Historie of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates", published in Britain in 1724. A recognised authority on the pirates of his time, Johnson's descriptions of such figures as Anne Bonny and Mary Read were for years required reading for those interested in the subject. Readers were titillated by his stories and a second edition was quickly published, though author Angus Konstam suspects that Johnson's entry on Blackbeard was "coloured a little to make a more sensational story." "A General
Ern Malley for the cover. The "Autumn 1944" edition of "Angry Penguins" appeared in June 1944 owing to wartime printing delays. Harris eagerly promoted it around the small world of Australian writers and critics. The reaction was not what he had hoped or expected. An article appeared in the University of Adelaide student newspaper ridiculing the Malley poems and suggesting that Harris had written them himself in some elaborate hoax. On 17 June, the Adelaide "Daily Mail" raised the possibility that Harris was the hoaxed rather than the hoaxer. Alarmed, Harris hired a private detective to establish whether Ern and Ethel Malley