Banvard's Folly by Curator For Ancient Near East Paul Collins

Banvard's Folly by Curator For Ancient Near East Paul Collins

The historical record crowns success. Those enshrined in its annals are men and women whose ideas, accomplishments, or personalities have dominated, endured, and most important of all, found champions. John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, and Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets are classic celebrations of the greatest, the brightest, the eternally constellated.

Paul Collins' Banvard's Folly is a different kind of book. Here are thirteen unforgettable portraits of forgotten people: men and women who might have claimed their share of renown but who, whether from ill timing, skullduggery, monomania, the tinge of madness, or plain bad luck-or perhaps some combination of them all-leapt straight from life into thankless obscurity. Among their number are scientists, artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and adventurers, from across the centuries and around the world. They hold in common the silenced aftermath of failure, the name that rings no bells.

Collins brings them back to glorious life. John Banvard was an artist whose colossal panoramic canvasses (one behemoth depiction of the entire eastern shore of the Mississippi River was simply known as "The Three Mile Painting") made him the richest and most famous artist of his day. . . before he decided to go head to head with P. T. Barnum. René Blondot was a distinguished French physicist whose celebrated discovery of a new form of radiation, called the N-Ray, went terribly awry. At the tender age of seventeen, William Henry Ireland signed "William Shakespeare" to a book and launched a short but meteoric career as a forger of undiscovered works by the Bard -- until he pushed his luck too far. John Symmes, a hero of the War of 1812, nearly succeeded in convincing Congress to fund an expedition to the North Pole, where he intended to prove his theory that the earth was hollow and ripe for exploitation; his quixotic quest counted Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe among its greatest admirers.

Collins' love for what he calls the "forgotten ephemera of genius" give his portraits of these figures and the other nine men and women in Banvard's Folly sympathetic depth and poignant relevance. Their effect is not to make us sneer or revel in schadenfreude; here are no cautionary tales. Rather, here are brief introductions-acts of excavation and reclamation-to people whom history may have forgotten, but whom now we cannot.

Collins, Paul: - Paul Collins is a linguaphile and a writer who has spent a lifetime learning about languages and their origins. He grew up in the Australian Outback where he would often accompany his father on his many trips to the interior. There, Paul found a fascination for the Aboriginal tribes that inhabited parts of the land the languages they spoke. This allure led Paul to study languages at university and then saw him undertake a trip to the Amazonian rainforest, where he worked for a year before going on to study some of the Pacific Islands myriad dialects. While he still works full time, Paul also writes books that help people to understand and learn a new language, with an approach that is based on making what is taught easy to learn with no unnecessary complications. It is a style which has gained him many plaudits and recognition from the many who have already taken up his courses. In his free time Paul still loves travelling above all else. He is happiest when he is in a place where the language provides a barrier to most and where he can immerse himself in the food and culture of the people who live there. Paul also enjoys the simple things in life, like watching documentaries, listening to classical music or taking a walk in the countryside. He lives just outside of Brisbane, with his wife and takes every opportunity he can to get to the beach or into the wide open spaces of the interior.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780312300333
ISBN 10	0312300336
Title	Banvard's Folly
Author	Curator For Ancient Near East Paul Collins
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	St. Martins Press-3PL
Year published	2002-05-03
Number of pages	320
Prizes	Short-listed for Oregon Book Awards (Nonfiction) 2002
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.