Customer Reviews

Norton I, Emperor of the United States

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This volume is the actual history of a San Francisco eccentric in the mid 19th century. The writing is so well done that pages and chapters fly by with ease, so much so that you may want to pace yourself to prolong your enjoyment. Besides the sheer pleasure of the story, this book will give you great insight into both the everyday life of mid-nineteenth century California and the mind-set of a culture in which Mark Twain thrived as a writer and newspaper reporter. This is the sort of book one could use to instill a love for history and a lesson in tolerance in a child!

The story of Emperor Norton feels like it should be fiction, but this really is his biography. I believe I ran into him as a character first in an issue of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. According to an interview I read later, Drury's book was one of his references.

Emperor Norton is truly one of the unknown legends of America.
Drury has done a fantastic job at capturing the life of this enegmatic character in all of his glory, and his weakness. Was Joshua Norton mad, or was he truly inspired? Did he put one over on the people of San Fransisco, or the other way around? Drury lets you draw your own conclusions of this totally true character.

A Discordian saint, Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. He lived in San Francisco, where he printed his own money (which was accepted by local businesses) and issued proclamations (which were printed by the local newspapers, and often carried out). There were thousands of attendees at his funeral. One of the ferry boats to Alcatraz island is the Harbor Emperor, which has a figure of the Emperor on its bow.

I ordered this for my brother. I had to order it 3 times to receive 1 copy. I had to leave negative feedback to get my money back from one of the amazon sellers. Please buy it somewhere else if you can. Bottom line, Amazon ruined Christmas 2010.

This is clearly the best book on the Emperor you could read.

Too bad it's out of print.