"The Loot of Bombasharna" by Lord Dunsany

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies existed from 1816 to 1860, giving us a nice mid-19th century time period bracketing for this story. It was, in fact, the Kingdom of Sicily having merged with the Kingdom of Naples, which for some reason was also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Hence the Two Sicilies.Show more

The Golden Age of Piracy was more the 17th and 18th centuries, but obviously piracy is still a problem even into the present day, it never really goes away, but Age of Sail piracy would certainly have still been a thing in the 19th century.

There towards the end we see he has loot from the Spanish treasure fleet, which ended its operations in 1790. Now having some loot from the treasure fleet just means it was captured at some point in his career, not necessarily recently. But that would tend to suggest the story takes place closer to 1816 than to 1860, given life spans within the time periods in question, especially for pirates...

The picture used is an illustration by Sidney Sime in the 1912 edition of "The Book of Wonder".

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7477/7477-h/7477-h.htm#THE_LOOT_OF_BOMBASHARNA

I feel like this story could be used as a basis for a whole series of other stories. Several plot hooks for other stories are already embedded in it, and we get a crewman by name, and nickname, who could easily be the main character of a spin-off story or two, if only a short explaining how he got his nickname. Lots of potential here for budding authors who want to write pirate adventures!