madness
The line between genius and lunacy, and the people who lived on it.
The Accountant of Skt.-Adolf-Wald
Issued one pencil a week, he spent thirty-five years balancing the ledgers of a universe he'd crowned himself emperor of.
The Long Walk Home
In 1841 a celebrated English poet walked out of his asylum and covered eighty miles in four days, eating grass and his own pipe tobacco, to reach a childhood sweetheart he was certain was waiting for him.
The Prince Who Painted Hell
What kind of man commissions an altarpiece of himself praying, then hangs it in the room where he prays?
Hugo Ball and the Lobster Bishop
What happens when a man in a cardboard lobster suit accidentally starts chanting Catholic mass?
Peter the Hermit and the Donkey
What kind of person gets caught deserting during a famine, weeps, is pardoned, and then gets promoted to diplomat?
The Man Who Only Seemed Dead
Every night for years, Hans Christian Andersen left a note on his bedside table that read: "I only appear to be dead."
The Man Who Called for a Fictional Doctor
A man who had invented 2,472 people died asking one of them to save him.
The Man Who Set Himself on Fire to Cure Hiccups
He inherited 132,000 acres at age two and died in a debtors' prison at thirty-seven, and those are not the strange parts.
The Man Who Loved a Pigeon
Nikola Tesla loved a pigeon as a man loves a woman. When she died, he said his life's work was finished.
The Man Who Was Emperor of America
Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor, and San Francisco largely agreed.