The Strange Genius of Ignatius Donnelly: The Populist Who Debunked Shakespeare and Found Atlantis

The Strange Genius of Ignatius Donnelly sheds light on the inimitable life of a neglected figure in US political and literary history. The father of American Populism, lieutenant governor of Minnesota, People's Party candidate for vice president, popularizer of the Shakespeare authorship controversy, proponent of the Atlantis theory, and author of bestselling speculative fictions, Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901) positively defies categorization.

Called a crank and a pseudoscientist by some an...