THE SQUARE PEGS (FIRST NEL EDITION 1968)
Irving Wallace herein presents the stories of some Americans who dared to be different. . . crackpots, perhaps, all of them, but also exceedingly diverting people to meet, know, and watch as they pursue their peculiar activities. This picturesque and wacky crew is brilliantly dealt with in these chapters. For example, we meet Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who believed the Earth was flat, and we learn the need for encouraging individualism and nonconformity; we meet Baron James A. Harden-Hickey, American ruler of Trinidad, who became an authority on the art of suicide; we meet George Francis Train, millionaire member of the Commune, who was the first man to travel around the world in 80 days and many others. . .