Hailed as "thoroughly fascinating" and "an excellent account" by The New York Times, this chronicle recaptures the vibrantly eccentric lifestyles of generations of free-spirited Americans. Its evocative profiles range from Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and Ambrose Bierce to lesser-known nonconformists and iconoclasts. Hoboes, starving poets, suffragettes, and artists' models populate these pages, forming a bustling panoply of banquets, suicides,...