Dead Famous

Fizzes with clever vignettes and juicy tidbits... [a] joyous romp of a book. * GUARDIAN * [An] engaging and well-researched book... Jenner brings his material to vivid life * OBSERVER * A fascinating, rollicking book in search of why, where and how fame strikes. Sit back and enjoy the ride. * Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads * With characteristic wit and curiosity, Jenner reveals the glamour and graft of celebrity lives in this rich, entertaining and original history. * Dr Hannah Greig, historical adviser to The Favourite and Poldark * A magical mystery tour through the history of celebrity - eye opening, provocative, triumphant. Greg Jenner is a suave and generous guide to the glittering, glamorous, often deadly world of celebrity. Dead Famous takes you deep into fabulous lives, tells all about price you pay for fame and explores why the world in which we live needs to make a few shining people into icons who thrill us, obsess us and then, finally, we want to tear apart. * Kate Williams, author and historian * Jenner is equal parts wide-eyed historical buff and sassy polemicist. Like some frisky, over-caffeinated lovechild of Dan Snow and Marina Hyde, he can't help but entertain you, even as he's pouring facts down your throat. * GUARDIAN - Book of the Day * This is a lively look at history's great and gawped at - and how they reshaped the world around them. * HISTORY REVEALED * There is an enjoyably wide range of cultural references... plenty of half-forgotten quirky treasures * SPECTATOR * Jenner is an engaging tour guide who smuggles some thought-provoking points about our culture into his zippy pen-portraits. * MAIL ON SUNDAY * As a tour guide through centuries of celebrity culture, Jenner acts as a kind of Oscar Wilde figure, dispensing wisdom and wit in equal measure, producing a fiendishly enjoyable and thoroughly engaging look at other people's lives. -- Becky Long * IRISH TIMES * Rollicking -- Roger Lewis * DAILY MAIL * Recommended read... entertaining and resonant stories of celebs from about 1700 to 1950. * READERS' DIGEST * Delivers a bounty of colourful anecdotes. * TLS * A fiendishly enjoyable and thoroughly engaging look at other people's lives. * Irish Times * Jenner pulls it off in a learned but entertaining book. * Who Do You Think You Are Magazine *

Greg Jenner is a public historian best known as the host of the hit BBC podcasts You're Dead To Me and Homeschool History, his work on BBC's multi-award winning TV series Horrible Histories, and for his books Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity, From Bronze Age To Silver Screen and A Million Years In A Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From The Stone Age To The Phone Age. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Royal Holloway, University of London.