Banvard's Folly: Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck by Paul Collins

Hardcover with DJ in Very Good (VG) condition.  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 aft