The author of these books is Gideon Defoe. He was born in 1975 and studied archaology at university. After that he mostly worked in a pub before writing 'The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists', which was first published in 2004. He claims that he wrote this book to impress a girl who he wanted to leave her boyfriend for him, but it didn't work (this may be a joke of course - his website is very funny.)

An Adventure with Scientists is a light-hearted story imagining how a group of pirates 'helped' the young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyages. It is now an animated film on general release.

He has written several other 'pirates' books as well, including An Adventure with Communists and An Adventure with Napoleon, as well as a film tie-in and other books on different subjects. The books are sometimes pitched at children under 12, but they have a large following among adults too. You can see a list here.