I was given this book by a friend in New York on New Year's Day, and it's going to be my first book of the new year. The subtitle would have attracted my interest even without Mike's recommendation, but when I read the dedication I was hooked: "This book is dedicated to my predecessors - Van Wyck Brooks, Isaac D'israeli, Stewart Holbrook, Edmund Pearson - and to any publisher who will put their works back in print." While I will have to look up the other three, Edmund Pearson is a long-time favorite of mine (click here to see BC-registered Pearson books, including several from me), and if Collins writes in the same vein I know I'll enjoy this book.

This is a wonderful book! The people described here had dreams, aspirations - some of them selfless, some wacky, some nefarious - but they all managed to make a big splash and then vanish without a trace. Some of them were so famous in their lifetimes that it's amazing to see how quickly they were forgotten - a salutary lesson for many of today's media celebrities...

There's Ephraim Bull, who developed the Concord grape [and saw the literal fruits of his labor go to make others millionaires]; Prof. Rene Blondlot, who discovered N-rays and set off a flurry of research and experimentation worldwide, a study that was hampered by the odd fact that most people couldn't detect the things at all; William Ireland, the "dullard" who made a successful living - for a while - forging documents by William Shakespeare; one of the best-selling poets of the 19th century, a household name in his time, the deathless, immortal - Martin Tupper?; Robert Coates, the Amateur of Fashion, renowned in his day for being the worst actor of all time [and drawing crowds to see him demonstrate it] - was he, in fact, the unwitting inventor of Camp?. And more... It's a very funny (and sometimes tragic) look at fads and fancies over a couple of centuries.

Mild complaint: while author Collins did dedicate the book to, among others, Edmund Pearson [and writes in a dry, Pearson-esque style that I liked very much], he didn't allow him a footnote, even though he opened his chapter on hoaxster Psalmanazar with an account of a truly wonderful practical joke played on rare book collectors in Europe in 1840 - an account that came from the "Literary Hoax, II" chapter of Pearson's Books in Black or Red. In fact, most of the chapters begin with a vaguely-related anecdote for which the sources are not mentioned, mildly distressing to us weird-old-book fans. Still, "Banvard's Folly" is vastly entertaining, and I recommend it.

Controlled release: This is on its way to BCer FutureCat in New Zealand. Hope you enjoy it!

Arrived safely in New Zealand today. I'd completely forgotten you were sending me this book, so it was a lovely surprise - many thanks, Gory!

^ ^
00
=+=
v

Great book! Of course, Gory, being such a great reviewer, has said pretty much everything I want to say in her journal entry, so I'll just add that it was fascinating to read about all these people who were household names in their time, and now are almost completely forgotten (though I *had* heard of Banvard's panoramas before). We have a phrase here that's often applied to local celebreties: "World famous in New Zealand" (i.e. they're incredibly well-known here, and utterly unknown everywhere else) - in the same way, you could say the people in this book were "Immortal in their life-time". It makes you wonder how many of the household names of our own generation will disappear into oblivion in a century or two (I can think of plenty who *should*!).

My favourite story was of Solresol, the musical language invented by Sudre - but then, I always love artificial languages - the idea that someone could sit down and actually invent a whole language is just so wonderfully arrogant and innocent at the same time.

^ ^
00
=+=
v

Taken to the BC-AUS conference in Sydney, and last seen on a table full of books at the registration evening.

^ ^
00
=+=
v