xiv, 317 pages : 24 cm

A collection of 140 biographies of American individualists

Includes index

Stephen Bachiler: The Amorous Parson -- Anonymous: The Oldest American -- Sam Hyde: The Crazy Indian -- John Rogers: Tumultuous John -- Edward Hyde Cornbury: The Peculiar Governor -- Bathseba Bowers: Love's Solitaire -- Benjamin Lay: The Rebellious Gnome -- John Richardson: The Great Seducer -- Joseph Moody: Handkerchief Moody -- Samuel Andrew Peters: The Lying Episcopalian Parson -- Mother Ann Lee: Ann the Word -- Elisha Perkins: The First American Quack -- Mary Burton: The Great Informer -- Tom Cook: The Leveller -- Timothy Dexter: The Luckiest Speculator -- Anonymous: The Naked Beachcomber -- John McQuain: The Man Who Hated Womankind -- Francis Adam Joseph Phyle: The Hermit of Mount Holly -- Jemima Wilkinson: Publick Universal Friend -- Sarah Bishop: The Atrocity Hermitess -- Johann Georg Rapp: God's Partner -- William Augustus Bowles: The Adventurer Crank -- Robert the Hermit: The Bitter Recluse -- John Randolph: The Flute-Voiced Sage of Roanoke -- John Chapman: Johnny Appleseed -- Lorenzo Dow: The Eccentric Cosmopolite -- David Wilbur: The Pumpkin Scratcher -- John Cleves Symmes: The Hollow Earther -- Richard M. Johnson: The Sometime Vice President -- William Miller: Prophet of Doom -- Theophilus Gates: The Battle Axe of Sex -- Joseph Palmer: Battler for the Beard -- Sylvester Graham: The Apostle of Eating Morality -- James Lick: The Folly-Builder -- James Johns: The Compulsive Journalist -- John McDowall: The Whorefinder General -- Richard Harper: Chicago's Old Vagrant -- George W. Henry: The Holy Shouter -- Albert Large: The Hermit Amidst the Wolves -- Jane Means Pierce: The President's Phantom Lady -- Sam Patch: The Great Descender -- Daniel Pratt: The Great American Traveler -- "Windwagon" Thomas Smith: The Dry Ocean Sailor -- John Humphrey Noyes: The Meticulous Free Lover -- James Wilson Marshall: The Man Who Owned California's Gold -- Lee Ah Bow: Devil Appo -- Maria Mond: The Joan-of-Arc of the Know-Nothings -- Dennis O'Sullivan: The Bum Who Dined at Astor -- Joshua A. Norton: Norton I, Emperor of the United States -- Boston Borbett: The Man Who Killed John Wilkes Booth

Jules Bourglay: The Old Leather Man -- John Johnston: "Ole Liver-Eating" Johnston -- George Francis Train: The Champion Crank -- Hinton Rowan Helper: The Bigoted Abolitionist -- John Allen: "Wickedest Man in New York" -- Black Bart (Charles E. Bolton): The Outlaw Po-8 -- Dr. Mary Walker: America's Self-Made Man -- Dick Barter: Rattlesnake Dick -- Hetty Green: The Witch of Wall Street -- Ellen Walsh: The Fake Socialite -- Cyrus Reed Teed: The Inside-Out Man -- Sarah Pardee Winchester: The Unfinished mansion -- George "Snatchem" Leese: Sporting Man -- Lillie Coit: "5" -- Anthony Comstock: The Great American Bluenose -- Charles R. Sherman: Huckleberry Charlie -- John Alexander Dowie: The Bluenose of Zion -- Martha Jane Cannary: Calamity Jane -- Nick Goodall: Nick the Fiddler -- Charles Kusz: Mr. Hate -- Henrietta Edwardina Schaefer Garrett: The Love-struck Recluse -- Robert Matthews: Matthias The Impostor -- Jack Ferguson and Pete Wells: The Gold Field Spendthrifts -- Joe Higginbotham: Buckskin Joe -- Dan Pound: The Imitation Prospector -- Lizzie Collins: The Collector -- Charlie Parkhurst: The Secretive Stagecoach Driver -- Thomas Greene Bethune: Blind Tom -- John Sutliff: The Lost Mole -- John Curran: The Jail Groupie -- James "Butt" Riley: Frisco Hardhead -- Oofty Goofty: Masochist's Delight -- John "One Lung" Curran: The Cop-Hating Bard -- Johnny Alee: The Eatiest Fool -- James A. Harden-Hickey: King Without a Country -- Marshall B. Gardner: The Genius Unappreciated -- William Tattenbaum: The Saga of Russian Bill -- Bet-A-Million (John W.) Gates: The King of the Lungers -- James Buchanan "Diamond Jim" Brady: Greatest of the Gourmands -- Frederick Wittrock: The Grand Confessor -- Stephen Senior: The Perth Amboy Miser -- Frederick Henry Prince; The Germ-Free Princes -- Cornelius K.G. Billings: Horseback Billings -- "Black jack" Tom Ketchum: The Second Stupidest Outlaw -- Joseph Bivens, Jr.: "Coxey" Bivens the Caveman -- Sam Ketchum: The Stupidest Outlaw -- Edmund Franz Creffield: Joshuah II -- James Eads How: The Millionaire Hobo -- Ned Green: The Profligate Spendthrift -- Mary Mallon: "Typhoid Mary" -- Florence Foster Jenkins: First Lady of the Sliding Scale -- Bernarr MacFadden: Body Love MacFadden -- James Leo "One-Eyed" Connelly: World Champion Gate-Crusher -- Alfred William Lawson: The Greatest -- Wilbur Glenn Voliva: Kind of the Flat Earthers

A. Van Horne Stuyvesant: The Last Stuyvesant -- Charlotte and Katherine Poillon: Strong-Armed Pinups -- William Smith: The Future Mayor of Chicago -- Sylvia Green Wilks: Hetty Green's Daughter -- William Henry "Burro" Schmidt: The Human Mole -- Charles Fort: The Enigma -- George Francis Gillette: The Einstein Chaser -- Emerich Juettner: Mr. 880 -- Charles G. Gates: Great Plunger II -- Erich Muenter: Dr. Muenter and "Mr. Hyde" -- Ota Benga: The Zoo Man -- Homer and Langley Collyer: The Shy Men of Harlem -- Theodore Coneys: Spiderman of Moncrieff Place -- "Dr." John R. Brinkley: Goat Gland Brinkley -- Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly: The Luckiest Fool Alive" -- Edward Leedskalnin: The Compulsive Builder of Coral Castle -- Anonymous: The French Maid -- Hugo Diederich: The Mad Barber -- George Adamski: The First Encounterer -- Stanley Clifford Weyman: Impostor for Fun -- The Cherry Sisters: Best of the Worst -- Tommy Manville: The Constant Bridegroom -- William James Sidis: The Infant Prodigy -- James Marion West, Jr.: "Silver Dollar" West -- Jimmy Slattery: Greatest Liver Who Ever Fought" -- Helen Brach: The Cinderella Recluse -- Wendel Sisters: Family of Misers -- Oric Bovar: The Charismatic Master Bovar -- Rose Dym: Broadway Rose -- John R. Keys: The 1.27-a-week Miser -- Helene and Beatrice Herzog: Refugees from Crime -- Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr.: The Grand Impostor -- The Romero Family: The Guests Who Wouldn't Check Out -- Sandra Ilene West: A Ferrari is Forever -- Morris Pop Corn: Pop Corn for the Suckers

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews