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Pox

Genius, Madness, And The Mysteries Of Syphilis

Pox Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Deborah Hayden

Formats and Prices

Price

$14.99

Price

$19.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. ebook $14.99 $19.99 CAD
  2. Trade Paperback $24.99 $31.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 4, 2008. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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Was Beethoven experiencing syphilitic euphoria when he composed “Ode to Joy”? Did van Gogh paint “Crows Over the Wheatfield” in a fit of diseased madness right before he shot himself? Was syphilis a stowaway on Columbus’s return voyage to Europe? The answers to these provocative questions are likely “yes,” claims Deborah Hayden in this riveting investigation of the effects of the “Pox” on the lives and works of world figures from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Writing with remarkable insight and narrative flair, Hayden argues that biographers and historians have vastly underestimated the influence of what Thomas Mann called “this exhilarating yet wasting disease.” Shrouded in secrecy, syphilis was accompanied by wild euphoria and suicidal depression, megalomania and paranoia, profoundly affecting sufferers’ worldview, their sexual behavior and personality, and, of course, their art. Deeply informed and courageously argued, Pox has already been heralded as a major contribution to our understanding of genius, madness, and creativity.

Genre:

On Sale
Aug 4, 2008
Page Count
352 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780786724130

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Deborah Hayden

About the Author

Deborah Hayden, an independent scholar and marketing executive, has lectured on syphilis and creativity, most recently at UCSF Medical School, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Bay Area History of Medicine Society. She lives in Mill Valley, California.

Learn more about this author