The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Celebrity

Volume IV, Number 1 | winter 2011

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Preamble

Dancing with the Stars

By Lewis H. Lapham

The vanity of princes is an old story; so is the wish for kings and the gazing into the pool of Narcissus.

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Vanishing Act

By Paul Collins

Barbara Newhall Follett was a prodigy who transfixed the literary world—and then vanished.

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Famous adventurers, entertainers, geniuses, and outlaws.

Map

Hall of Famers

Famous adventurers, entertainers, geniuses, and outlaws.

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c. 1045 BC | Fenghao

View from the Top

Great, indeed, is the mandate of heaven.More

1715 | London

Wretched Lust of Praise

“Unblemished let me live, or die unknown.”More

1862 | South Carolina

Hour of Fame

The statesman of today.More

Charts & Graphs

Where Are They Now?

Celebrities who dropped off the map.

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American critic Edmund Wilson.

Painted portrait of second President of the United States John Adams.

British scholar and military officer T.E. Lawrence.

American poet John Berryman.

Yugoslav novelist Danilo Kiš.

Black and white photograph of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

American social reformer Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.

—Martin Luther, c. 1530

Christopher Marlowe & Roland Barthes

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