Date: Monday, August 17th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8 ( Tickets Here )
*** Copies of the book will be on sale at this event
Oliver Cromwell led the charge in the beheading of England’s King Charles I in 1649. But little did he know that his own head would soon roll. And roll and roll for the next three hundred years across the Commonwealth. The execution of Charles I ended the monarchy, and Cromwell became the Lord Protector of England until his own death from natural causes in 1658. His body was embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey, only to be exhumed by King Charles II three years later. The new king had restored the monarchy and wished to avenge his father’s death by hanging Cromwell and beheading him posthumously.
Now, for the first time, the memoirs of Oliver Cromwell’s embalmed head have surfaced, making it the first account of any world leader or any human being for that matter chronicling the afterlife.
The adventures began with Cromwell’s decapitation and the head’s impalement on a post at Westminster Hall, where it stayed for more than twenty years before being freed by a heavy storm. Over the centuries, the head enjoyed a series of unexpected adventures, encountering a host of bizarre and well-known charactersfrom its many owners, curious anatomists and misled but obsessed phrenologists to other preserved decapitated heads and impostor Cromwell heads.
Hartzman will take questions from the audience and do his best to answer for Cromwell’s head. In addition, Brooklyn artist Vi Luong will be signing copies of the book and limited edition posters of the cover and Stephie Coplan will be performing an original song that she wrote to celebrate the release of the book; you can see the video by clicking here.
Marc Hartzman has long held a fascination with the bizarre tales and characters that occupy history. Many of them fill the pages of his earlier works, specifically American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History’s Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers (Tarcher/Penguin) and God Made Me Do It: True Stories of the Worst Advice the Lord Has Ever Given His Followers (Sourcebooks). He is also the author of Found on eBay: 101 Genuinely Bizarre Items From the World’s Online Yard Sale (Universe/Rizzoli) and The Anti-Social Network Journal: A Private Place For All the Thoughts, Ideas and Plans You Don’t Want To Share (Knock Knock).
In addition, Hartzman has been a contributor to the Weird News sections of AOL and The Huffington Post. He maintains a career as an award-winning Group Creative Director at a New York advertising agency. He currently lives in New Rochelle, New York, with his wife, Liz, daughters Lela and Scarlett, cats Barnum and Bailey, and Patrick the bearded dragon.
