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Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World, by Paul S. Collins
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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.
- Sales Rank: #900203 in Books
- Published on: 2002-05-03
- Released on: 2002-05-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .71" w x 5.50" l, .90 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
From The New Yorker
Thirteen wry biographical essays about people, once famous, who have disappeared from memory. In 1903, the French physicist René Blondlot was so eager to follow up the recent discovery of X-rays that he discovered N-rays, which do not exist. In the eighteen-forties, the American painter John Banvard gained international celebrity for his painting of the Mississippi River—a panorama which measured over fifteen thousand square feet. And in the seventeen-nineties, when England was suffering a fit of bardolatry, a London lawyer's clerk, William Henry Ireland, began "finding" Shakespeare documents. After these forgeries became collectors' items as forgeries, Ireland met the demand by making forgeries of his forgeries, and every line from his pen remains extremely valuable.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
Review
“No writer better articulates our interest in the confluence of hope, eccentricity, and the timelessness of the bold and strange than Paul Collins. [This book is] sublimely odd, frequently funny, and better yet, thrillingly factual.” ―Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
“Though the most profound question is 'What is the meaning of life?' the most human question 'Don't they know how special I am?' Paul Collins knows. Thanks to these fascinating tales, his forgotten attention-seekers must be rolling over in their graves, if only to finally bask in the limelight.” ―Sarah Vowell, author of Take the Cannoli
“Collins's swift, humorous prose makes for satisfying schadenfreude.” ―Time Out New York
“[A] lively treatise on eccentricity, flawed genius, and star-crossed obsession.” ―The Washington Times
“An unqualified success.” ―The Seattle Times
“A remarkably lucid and entertaining peek into the admittedly strange lives of the characters [Collins] has unearthed . . . A witty meditation on the vagaries of fame and the human drive for validation.” ―Tucson Weekly
“With crisp prose and engaging storytelling, Collins contemplates the whims of fortune and the foolhardiness of humanity.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Hearteningly strange . . . Stretching the bounds of nonfiction's propensity for weirdness, Collins exhumes little-known figures [and] recounts their perversely inspiring battles against the more logical ways of the world.” ―The Onion
“The thirteen lives and times to which Collins devotes his considerable scholarship and 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's endeavor, however, we can proclaim our permanent thanks and amazement and heartiest welcome.” ―Los Angeles Times Book Review
About the Author
Paul Collins writes for McSweeneys Quarterly, and his work has also appeared in Lingua Franca and eCompany Now. While writing Banvard's Folly he lived in San Francisco, where he taught Early American literature at Dominican University. He and his family moved briefly to Wales--a journey about which he is writing a book--and now live in Oregon.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
very interesting
By Barry Solomon
This book is filled with windows into the the lives of people who did or tried to do very interesting things, and never had their stories told until now. Very interesting slices of life. Fun to read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Truly insightful
By Snorri Wolfersson
I absolutely loved this book. Paul Collins takes thirteen chapters of American myth that have been largely forgotten and turns them into an eye opening treatise on the failure of will, the folly of hubris, and the absolute madness of challenging the status quo. Mr. Collins' style leads to frequent laugh out loud asides while telling the story of folks who either succeeded and then lost, had a mad idea that failed (but not for lack of trying), or who had the sheer will to make themselves momentarily inportant only to be swallowed up by the tide of time. Every person and idea profiled was at one time wildly popular or important and each eventually fell from favor for one reason or another. Sometimes it was common sense that triumphed, sometimes fad ran its course, sometimes folks just got too bizarre for accomodation. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a look into uncommon history. Mr. Collins has done us the favor of rummaging through the musty, dusty, long forgotten bookstacks of some of our most prestigious libraries and he has come up with a winner of a book. Save yourself the moldy lungs and long hours of researching the library basements yourself and read this work.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
When failure was funny
By villekulla
I'm not too proud to admit that I started reading this book purely for the schadenfreude. Dreamers whose bold visions go wrong are a reliable source of humor. What surprised me was that I actually felt uplifted by Banvard's Folly. Mr. Collins doesn't go for the cheap shot here. He treats his subjects with affection, as much for their foibles as their nobility. It reminded me of someone who once said of Jeff Koons that it was impossible to tell whether or not he was making fun of his subjects. I think that Collins truly appreciates these characters, even as he chronicles their catastrophes.
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