History will long remember the Edisons, Einsteins and Darwins: they succeeded in changing the world, and the world has repaid them by enshrining their names. But what of those others with similarly revolutionary and groundbreaking ideas who plummeted into oblivion? What of the man who invented the N-ray? Or the one who made up a universal singing language? They are gone and forgotton. . . until now.

'Failure is generally a lot more interesting than success . . . this book was only a modest success in America; it deserves to be a huge one here, since we have a better natural empathy with the sweet misery of not being quite good enough at things. Failure's coming home; we should all support it by buying Paul Collins' wonderful book' Mail on Sunday