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Banvard's Folly by Paul Collins (2001, Hardcover, Illustrated) 
Banvard's Folly by Paul Collins (2001, Hardcover, Illustrated)

 
Banvard's Folly by Paul Collins (2001, Hardcover, Illustrated)

Author: Paul Collins
Publisher: St Martins Pr
Publication Date: 2001-05-01
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0312268866
ISBN-13: 9780312268862
Product ID: EPID1902866
Description: Each of these 13 profiles documents the hitherto lost personalities behind minor, once-famous (or infamous) achievements. Biographies of a 19th-century forger, the man responsible for the development of the Concord grape, an inventor of ...
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Synopsis
Each of these 13 profiles documents the hitherto lost personalities behind minor, once-famous (or infamous) achievements. Biographies of a 19th-century forger, the man responsible for the development of the Concord grape, an inventor of a language based on music, and many others are included. Some of the material collected here was initially published by McSweeney's magazine.

Details
Publication Date:2001-05-01
Edition Description:Illustrated

Size
Length:286 pages
Height:8.3 in
Width:5.5 in
Thickness:1.0 in
Weight:17.6 oz

Publisher's Note
Presents an entertaining and informative look at some forgotten men and women of history who, thanks to bad timing, fatal flaws, bad luck, or the fickleness of fate, have been consigned to oblivion, including eccentric panorama painter John Banvard, delusional physicist Rene Blandlot, and would-be Shakespeare forger William Henry Ireland.

Industry Reviews
"What happened? is the rhetorical question that haunts Collins' text and defines his brief. He proves himself a tireless investigator, looking under rocks in the remotest reaches of, well, libraries--of all places. The New York Public, the Library of Congress, the Huntington and Folger Shakespeare and dozens more--the stacks seem a perfect bromide to his expansive interests...The 13 lives and times to which Collins devotes his considerable scholarship and his manifest narrative gifts in BANVARD'S FOLLY are the flash-in-the-pan, briefly notable and long ignored ones of a kind who remind us of the nobility and futility, the grandeur and begrudgery of our endeavors. Of Collins' endeavor, however, we can proclaim our permanent thanks and amazement and heartiest welcome. "
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Thomas Lynch (06/17/2001)

"[S]plendidly entertaining, involving farce as well as temporary success before the inevitable disaster...Collins keeps all his narratives rollicking along with these dedicated nutcases. Laugh, but be impressed."
New Scientist (06/30/2001)

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