Megargee's Reviews > The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody

This is supposedly history for people who hate history. The irony comes from the fact that the more you know history, the more you will enjoy and appreciate these tongue in cheek biographies and sketches of famous and infamous personages ranging Cheops and Cleopatra through Nero, Attila, Charlemagne, various Greats (Peter, Catherine, Frederick), several Tudors, to Montezuma and Miles Standish, not neglecting naughty ladies such as Lucrezia Borgia and Lady Godiva.
The late Will Cuppy worked on the sketches in this book from 1933 until his death in 1964. Before penning one of his historical vignettes, he would engage in extensive research and amass all the information he could find on his subject, making extensive notes on 3 X 5 cards. Upon his death it fell to Fred Feldkamp to organize some 200 file boxes of material into a coherent publication. Perhaps that is why GR lists some 30 different editions over the half century since his death. My edition, for example has 28 sketches rather than the 22 the GR description mentions, as well as pencil illustrations of the biographees by William Steig. Each biography is accompanied by a dozen or so irreverent footnotes commenting on the subjects' contemporaries and their foibles.
If you can find a copy, buy it and enjoy.