Stacks of books have been written about the kings and queens of England and Henry the Eighth. But few books have chronicled the lesser-known side-characters in history until now with Adrian Bliss’s humorous – albeit strange new book, “The Greatest Nobodies of History [Ballantine Books].
Bliss is no historian. Rather, he’s a well known British comedian and YouTuber who staunchly defends his 10 stories of extraordinary side characters in humanity’s most major moments.
As Bliss tells his readers, “It is impossible for us to know exactly how any historical event unfolded.”The past, he asserts, is overflowing with “embellished tales, subtle propaganda, outright lies, vicious rumors, harmless exaggerations, misheard anecdotes and people just getting things wrong.”
And so Bliss embellishes the alternative worlds of supporting cast members of some of history’s greatest icons writing, “In history, nothing is certain, so perhaps, the lives of its greatest nobodies went a little something like this…”
He follows up each story with what he calls The Facts – history sans his fictional character inserted into it.
In “The Master’s Ferret,” for instance, Bliss tells the fanciful story of a psychic medium who attempted to summon the spirit of the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci but was connected to the spirit of a 5,000-year-old Italian ferret who recounts the story of Da Vinci painting his masterpiece Lady with an Ermine, painted between 1489 and 1490.
Bliss writes that historians now believe the artist actually used a ferret in the painting.
The actual painting exists today in a museum in Poland after disappearing for a hundred years.
And so it is with his other stories that are filled with what could be called flim flam – or deceptive nonsense – wrapped around historical events as a comedic device. Luckily for us readers, Bliss reveals the actual history of each event at the end of every story.
