The Queen of the Pirate Isle

The origin of the title of the Queen of the Pirate Isle by Bret Harte, may be briefly stated as follows:— An hour after luncheon, one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese junk. The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in the weather was as unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West Indian Hurricane, purely local in character and unfelt anywhere else, struck Master Hickory and threw him overboard, whence, wildly swimming for his life and carrying Polly on his back, he eventually reached a Desert Island in the closet. Francis Bret Harte (1836–1902) was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.