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2001, Book Cover, Banvard’s Folly, St. Martin’s Press

Banvard’s Folly: Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001

Writer Dave Eggers chose a detail of a Cellarius ptolemaic planetary chart from the George Glazer Gallery for his design of the cover of this book by his colleague Paul S. Collins. The book is a tribute to obsession and eccentricity, chronicling 13 people of grand ambitions, acclaimed in their own time, but whose schemes eventually and spectacularly failed–inventors and scientists who were eventually proven wrong, businessmen whose grand projects collapsed, and con artists whose hoaxes were eventually discovered. Eggers is founder and editor of the literary magazine McSweeney’s, where Collins was a contributor.

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