Fourth Estate, 2003, Softcover, Book Condition: Good, First

First Impression. Size: Octavo (standard book size). 261 pages. Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. Pages are lightly tanned throughout. Edges browned slightly. This book is available and will be shipped from our Australian address within two business days. This is the story of Elmer McCurdy, a failed plumber from Bangor, Maine, who drifted west to become a failed outlaw. He arrived in Oklahoma a few decades after the golden age of outlaws and attempted to resurrect the lost art of train robbing. In 1911, after a short spree of comically bungled robberies, a sheriff's posse caught up with him and shot him dead.In death, Elmer McCurdy accidentally found fame. From the Oklahoma funeral home that propped up his preserved corpse and charged a nickel-a-look, to the sideshows of the Great Patterson Carnival, where he was exhibited as a felled outlaw, McCurdy became big business. His post-mortem career in show business lasted until 1976, when he was discovered painted orange and hanging by the neck in a California amusement ride. Mark Svenvold has reconstructed the bizarre itinerary of the corpse through sixty years of freakshows, sideshows, carnivals, and exploitation movies, capturing some of this country's greatest fantasies and most elaborate publicity stunts. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Biography & Autobiography; United States; ISBN: 0007166702. ISBN/EAN: 9780007166701. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 4953.