"Everyone loves a good villain! From the back pages of history, vivid, entertaining portraits of little-known scoundrels whose misdeeds range from the simply inept to the truly horrifying. Even if you're an avid history buff, you've probably never heard of this disreputable cast of characters: A drunken, ne'er-do-well cop who abandoned his post at Ford's Theatre, giving assassin John Wilkes Booth unchallenged access to President Lincoln; a notorious Kansas quack who made millions by implanting billy goat testicles in gullible male patients; and America's worst female serial killer ever. These are three of the memorable but little-known rogues profiled in this eye-opening and entertaining book. Dividing his profiles into three categories--villains, scoundrels, and rogues--author and former National Geographic editor Paul Martin serves up concise, colorful biographies of thirty of America's most outrageous characters. Whether readers choose to be horrified by the story of Ed Gein, Alfred Hitchcock's hideous inspiration for Psycho, or marvel at the clever duplicity of the con artist who originated the phony bookie operation portrayed in The Sting, there's something here for everyone. Brimming with audacious, unforgettable characters often overlooked by standard history books, this page-turner is a must for anyone with an interest in the varieties of human misbehavior"-- From the back pages of history, vivid, entertaining portraits of little-known scoundrels whose misdeeds range from the simply inept to the truly horrifying.
Record details
ISBN:9781616149277 (paperback)
ISBN:1616149272 (paperback)
Physical Description:print 304 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Publisher:Amherst, New York : Prometheus Books, 2014.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-285) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
Machine generated contents note: CONTENTS/CAST OF CHARACTERS -- VILLAINS: -- Merchant of Misery -- James DeWolf -- The Cutthroat Captain of Cave-In-Rock -- Samuel Mason -- Architect of a Tragedy -- John Chivington -- The Late, Unlamented Little Pete -- Fong Ching -- The Killer They Called Hell's Belle -- Belle Sorensen Gunness -- Partners in Perfidy -- Isaac Harris and Max Blanck -- Chicago's Florist-Mobster -- Dean O'Banion -- A Huckster's Rise and Fall -- John Brinkley -- Hitchcock's Hideous Inspiration -- Ed Gein -- SCOUNDRELS: -- Salem's Rabid Witch-Hunter -- William Stoughton -- Uncle Daniel the "Speckerlator" -- Daniel Drew -- Unleashing the James-Younger Gang -- James Lane -- Lincoln's Missing Bodyguard -- John Parker -- Squirrel Tooth Alice -- Libby Thompson -- The Lawman Who Went Bad -- Burt Alvord -- The Very Mellow Yellow Kid -- Joseph Weil -- You Bet Your Life -- Alvin Thomas -- Keeper of the Immaculate Sperm -- Charles Davenport -- The Silken Voice of Treachery -- Mildred Gillars -- ROGUES: -- Who's that Rapping On My Floor? -- Maggie and Kate Fox -- The Witch of Wall Street -- Hetty Green -- King of the Cannibal Islands -- David O'Keefe -- Master Salesman of a Dubious Legend -- Herbert Bridgman -- The Consummate Gold Digger -- Peggy Hopkins Joyce -- The Mad, Sad Poet of Greenwich Village -- Maxwell Bodenheim -- The Bifurcated Congressman -- Samuel Dickstein -- The Frugal Counterfeiter -- Emerich Juettner -- Imperfect Pitch -- Don Lapre.
Book
