Paul S. Collins
The subtitle pretty much describes this book. Collins gives us a baker’s dozen of lively and fascinating essays on forgotten folk who might have - but didn’t - make it into the history books. History books, after all, tend to focus on people who succeeded. There’s the eponymous John Banvard, once probably the wealthiest painter in the world, creator of a half-mile long panorama of the Mississippi River, who died in obscurity. There’s William Ireland, who discovered Shakespeare’s “Vortigern and Rowena“, a play Shakespeare never wrote. Collins even tells us why some old houses have blue window panes.
“Banvard’s Folly” is a fun read.
(Collins’ blog is worth a look, too.)