A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans

March 1, 2008
Farquhars latest offering of historical and biographical oddments (previous ones have also borne the appellation Treasury) limns newsmakers in their times who are now unaccountably obscure. For example, Civil Warera congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, an outspoken Copperhead. Brought up on charges of violating an order to desist in declaring of sympathies for the enemy, Vallandigham was sentenced to banishment to the Confederacy by order of President Lincoln. Then theres Mayflower passenger John Billington, hanged in 1630 as the first person capitally punished in the colonies. Also notorious pirate Anne Bonny; Richard Mentor Johnson, who killed Shawnee chief Tecumseh and later became vice president; and Sarah Winnemucca, the Paiute Princess who pled her peoples case to President Hayes, with mixed results. Successive chapters recount the exploits of William J. Burns, Americas Sherlock Holmes, and Gaston B. Means, the nations . . . Moriarty. And there are moreinspirational leaders, crooks and scoundrels, even athlete Dick Fosbury, creator of the high-jumping method called the Fosbury Flop. Connoisseurs of recreational biography should bliss out.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)