For a period source ( and one that's free to read online), there's Esquemelin's History of the Buccaneers of America which has quite a lot on the earlier pirates like Henry Morgan and the savage François L'Olonnais. Since it was published in 1684, it does not have anything on the later pirates, like Blackbeard or Captain Kidd.

[A General History of the Pyrates] (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40580), attributed to Daniel Defoe writing under a pen name, was published in 1724 and contains numerous biographies of near-contemporary and contemporary pirates in two volumes. These include Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Blackbeard, William Kidd and Edward Lowe. There may also be a few fictional ones Defoe made up in there too though...