The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody: Great Figures of History Hilariously Humbled

Will Cuppy

ISBN 10: 088029809X / ISBN 13: 9780880298094

Published by Barnes & Noble, 1992

About this Item

A very funny view of the great, and nearly great, people throughout history by New Yorker humorist Will Cuppy. Hysterically funny (yet historically accurate), Cuppy transforms luminaries such as Nero, Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Lucrezia Borgia, Attila the Hun, Lady Godiva and Miles Standish into human beings. These are not the usual portraits but as we would have known them Cuppy-wise: foolish, fallible, and very much our common ancestors. After leaving Chicago for New York City, for eight years, from 1921 to 1929, Will Cuppy lived as a hermit on Jones Island, off Long Island's South Shore. From there, he gained a reputation for his factual but funny magazine articles and wrote the book, How to be a Hermit, his first bestseller. The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody was left unfinished after Cuppy's death in 1949. The manuscript was completed by a friend from some 15,000 note cards in Cuppy's apartment. The book spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list and has endured as a classic of American humor.

Seller Inventory # CIN088029809XG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody: Great Figures of History Hilariously Humbled
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 088029809X
• ISBN 13: 9780880298094
• Binding: Hardback
• Illustrator: Steig, William
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Ever wonder what Nero did before he began fiddling about in Rome, or wanted the bare facts about Lady Godiva? Maybe you've found the story of Lucrezia Borgia a bitter pill to swallow, or wanted the straight skinny on corpulent King Henry the Eighth, but you haven't the stomach for stuffy history books. Now these and twenty-two more of history's most famous personages are brought brilliantly to life, in this collection of unfailingly accurate yet undeniably hilarious biographies. You'll laugh while you learn about the very real people behind the legendary names, including why Montezuma was so vengeful, and why Catherine was so Great. You'll even finally lay to rest the rumor that Charlemagne was called "Chuck" by his friends.

About the Author

Will Cuppy wrote a weekly column of reviews of mystery books for the New York Herald Tribune and various freelance journalism for other newspapers and magazines. His other books include How to tell your friends from the Apes (1931). How to get from January to December and How to become Extinct. He died in 1949.