Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck

by PaulCollins (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $4.48

  History will always remember the Edisons, Einsteins and Darwins. But what about the others with similarly revolutionary ideas, but who plummeted into oblivion? Here are the extraordinary, and inspirational, lives of thirteen 'losers' who achieved great heights in their lifetimes only to then meet crushing defeats. There is the man who discovered N-rays only to be eclipsed by X-rays; the 'Fenian Ram', a submarine built by Irish immigrants in Mahattan to cross the Atriantic and sink the British fleet; the Frenchman behind a doomed universal language based on musical tones; the unknown and uncredited inventor of the first digital computer: and the tragically overconfident Shakespeare forger.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.56

  History will long remember the Edisons, Einsteins and Darwins: they succeeded in changing the world, and the world has repaid them by enshrining their names. But what of those others with similarly revolutionary and groundbreaking ideas who plummeted into oblivion? What of the man who invented the N-ray? Or the one who made up a universal singing language? They are gone and forgotton. . . until now.

  'Failure is generally a lot more interesting than success . . . this book was only a modest success in America; it deserves to be a huge one here, since we have a better natural empathy with the sweet misery of not being quite good enough at things. Failure's coming home; we should all support it by buying Paul Collins' wonderful book' Mail on Sunday