The Greatest Nobodies of History: Minor Characters from Major Moments

All at once funny, touching, dazzlingly informative and fascinating, brilliantly imaginative and altogether wonderful. Capable of switching between divine silliness and genuinely tender sweetness, tragedy, and wonder.STEPHEN FRYHistory belongs to the heroes. But to get the full story, sometimes you have to ask the side characters.The lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Henry VIII, and Queen Victoria fill bookshelves and fascinate scholars all over the world. But little attention is given to the ferret who posed for the Renaissance master, the servant who oversaw the Tudors toilet time, or the famous horse who thrilled the miserable old monarch.These supporting cast members have been waiting in the wings for too long, and Adrian Bliss thinks its high time they join their gloryhogging contemporaries in the spotlight. Fortunatelythanks to some recently discovered ancient complaint letters, court transcripts, and memoirs in bottlesnow they can.Equal parts fascinating and hilarious, The Greatest Nobodies of History is a surreal love letter to lifes forgotten heroes, featuring hitherto undocumented accounts from Ancient Greece to the front lines of the Great Emu War.All that follows really happened, and some of it could even be true.