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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Portrait of Orson Welles for Citizen Kane, 1940.

Against Appearances

By Bruce Bawer

Orson Welles became a star not by creating some great work, but by simply scaring the hell out of people.

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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. 1874 | London

Gossip Girl

Lillie Langtry goes viral. More

c. 2100 BC | Mesopotamia

Press Release

Ur-Nammu, not lacking in confidence.More

1550 | Florence

Deification

Touched by an angel. More

Charts & Graphs

Paths of Glory

The road to fame and fortune rarely runs straight.

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Painted portrait of British statesman and political thinker Edmund Burke.

Black and white photograph of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

Photograph of American writer and professor Paul Collins.

American showman P.T. Barnum.

Image of Scottish poet, journalist, and author Charles Mackay.

Canadian writer Stephen Marche.

We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.

—Clark Gable, 1935

Christopher Marlowe & Roland Barthes

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Feeling Sheepish

By Sally Coulthard

Where did the phrase black sheep come from, anyway? More

DÉjÀ Vu

Whale Tales

2020:

Whale catches runaway train.

1891:

Whale purportedly houses lost sailor in its stomach.

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The World in Time

Lance Morrow

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of God and Mammon: Chronicles of American Money. More

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