The Greatest Nobodies of History

Minor Characters from Major Moments

By: Adrian Bliss

Narrated by: Adrian Bliss, Beth Rylance, Sebastian Humphreys, Kristin Atherton

“All at once funny, touching, dazzlingly informative and fascinating, brilliantly imaginative and altogether wonderful. Capable of switching between divine silliness and genuinely tender sweetness, tragedy, and wonder.”—STEPHEN FRY

History belongs to the heroes. But to get the full story, sometimes you have to ask the side characters.

The lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Henry VIII, and Queen Victoria fill bookshelves and fascinate scholars all over the world. But little attention is given to the ferret who posed for the Renaissance master, the servant who oversaw the Tudor’s toilet time, or the famous horse who thrilled the miserable old monarch.

These supporting cast members have been waiting in the wings for too long, and Adrian Bliss thinks it’s high time they join their glory-hogging contemporaries in the spotlight. Fortunately—thanks to some recently discovered ancient complaint letters, court transcripts, and memoirs in bottles—now they can.

Equal parts fascinating and hilarious, The Greatest Nobodies of History is a surreal love letter to life’s forgotten heroes, featuring hitherto undocumented accounts from Ancient Greece to the front lines of the Great Emu War.

All that follows really happened, and some of it could even be true.

©2024 Adrian Bliss (P)2024 Random House Audio

Very fun!

This creative take on history is a great listen. the narration was done really well and the stories are absolutely charming. I strongly recommend it!

Lots of fun!

Prefect reading! Hopefully there will be a volume 2 in the near future, and then a volume 3. Lots of wonderful moments that will stay with you!

Completely enjoyed this book!

Engaging with humor on several levels. Especially loved the subtle humor. And I learned about events I didn’t think I needed to know; I found I was looking forward to “the facts” wrap up of each section. This book is creative and fun.

very creative

a very unique way to look at history. I only wish there was more. I look forward to see more books from Adrian

Bliss is Bliss

As someone who is a fan of Adrian Bliss’s social media content, I was excited to hear about his book. As expected, there are many funny passages in the book. What was not expected were the equal amounts of poignant passages. Adrian shows himself to be a very capable writer. The chapter of the trial of the vestal virgin smacked of British humor. Whereas the chapter of the last Dodo, which you would expect to be very funny, was a heart wrenching tale. I will eagerly await his next book

Clever and comical revision of history

Bravo Adrian! Beautiful writing, filled with clever thought, and prose. I laughed, cried and learned...what more could one ask for from an audio book? Fingers crossed for an encore of some sort. We'll done!

absolutely brilliant

the writing and acting are exquisite. incredibly entertaining i hope they make more like this

Love love love this book😍

I bought this because I enjoyed his YouTube Shorts so much. He is very clever and absolutely adorable!

I’ve listened to this book three times. The first time was really good! The second time I picked up even more of the humor. The third time I enjoyed the anticipation of each pun.

I also liked the format of the creative perspectives, kernel of fact, and the individual, bite sized stories.

Light, humorous, and creatively educational

Such dry wit and such great readers - highly recommended for when you need a mood lift. And you may even learn an obscure historical fact or two...!

So glad he read it himself!

I loved this! I've been a fan of Adrian's videos for a long time, and I was thrilled to see he brought his creativity and sideways way of looking at things to book form too.
Kudos, Adrian! Hope there's a volume 2 one day.