Blue glass

I’ve enjoyed SD Tucker’s trilogy of weird Latin American leaders, and a reference to General Maximiliano Martinez’s belief in the curative powers of blue-tinted glass [ FT406:50-53] reminded me of a book that is probably familiar to many readers, but is well worth re-reading or adding to one’s library: Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity and Rotten Luck by Paul Collins (Picador 2001). There is not only a chapter regarding General Augustus Pleasanton’s The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and the Blue Color of the Sky, as mentioned in Tucker’s article, but ones devoted to, among others, the 18th century Shakespeare forger William Ireland (with a companion chapter on Delia Bacon, who went mad trying to prove Francis Bacon really was “Shakespeare”); George Psalmanazar, the “Formosan” imposter; and Robert “Romeo” Coates, regarded in his time as the worst actor ever to tread the boards.

Christopher DiGrazia

Bradford, Massachusetts