In 1628, as the guest of a lavish banquet thrown by the Duke of Buckingham, the newly married Queen Henrietta Maria watched as servants set a large pie in front of her. Before she could cut into it, the crust began to rise and from the pie emerged a tiny man, perfectly proportioned, but only 18 inches tall. Lord Minimus is the story of that man - Jeffrey Hudson. Jeffrey's was a life of splendor and riches; of piracy and slavery; of war, treachery, intrigue and death. From the lowest strata he rose to the courts of kings and queens and was celebrated by the finest artists of the day. As he grew older, his adventures grew even more bizarre. He was captured by pirates, killed an opponent in a duel, served as a slave in North Africa, and was falsely imprisoned. Yet tragically, Britain's smallest man died alone, abandoned by a society which no longer cared and which had long moved on to the next object of fashion. Lord Minimus is the first complete biography of Hudson. Nick Page draws on original, contemporary sources to weave a tale that is not only a thrilling biography, but also a fascinating insight into the seventeenth century.

The angel Minimus is commissioned by God to record and keep track of the struggle between God and Satan for the rulership of the Universe. Since any angel has been alive since the beginning of the Universe MINIMUS has a ringside seat to what is still going on.

On March 23, 1844, General Tom Thumb, just 25 inches tall, entered the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace and bowed low to Queen Victoria. On both sides of the Atlantic, this meeting marked a tipping point in the nineteenth century, and the age of the freak was born.Bewitching all levels of society, it was a world of curiosities and astonishing spectacle—of dwarfs, giants, bearded ladies, Siamese twins, and swaggering showmen. But the real stories—human dramas that so often eclipsed the fantasy presented on the stage—of the performing men, women and children, have been forgotten or marginalized in the histories of the very people who exploited them. In this richly evocative account, John Woolf uses a wealth of recently discovered material to bring to life the sometimes tragic, sometimes triumphant, always extraordinary stories of people who used their (dis)abilities and difference to become some of the first international celebrities. Through their lives we discover afresh some of the great transformations of the age: the birth of show business, of celebrity, of advertising, and of “alternative facts” while also exploring the tensions between the power of fame, the impact of exploitation, and our fascination with “otherness.”

A disgraced entertainer, after years in isolation, emerges to lead a violent revolt in the street of Las Vegas. The Isle of Minimus is a neon mirage from the heart of the sandblasted Nevada wasteland, a panorama of crazy dictators, dreamy acrobats, the urban warlords of Hollywood, video game cults, sinister boatmen, rogue airshow pilots, feral tourists, minituarised landmarks, opium dens, pop art, nuclear war, architecture, music, money, the sixties, the nineties, the post-nineties..a story of limitless scope and spectacle. Using repetition, paradox and association, the novel leaves conventional views of linearity behind as it revisits the World's Fair in Montreal 1967 and its antithesis, Las Vegas in 1999, by way of a confrontation in which a cast of dwarves fight their way out of the now-never capitalist ontology in an attempt to find a way back into history.

A richly imagined, gorgeously written historical novel set in the Stuart court featuring a unique hero: Jeffrey Hudson, a dwarf tasked with spying on the beautiful but vulnerable queen It's 1629, and King Charles I and his French queen Henrietta Maria have reigned in England for less than three years. Young dwarf Jeffrey Hudson is swept away from a village shambles and plunged into the Stuart court when his father sells him to the most hated man in England—the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham trains Jeffrey to be his spy in the household of Charles' seventeen-year-old bride, hoping to gain intelligence that will help him undermine the vivacious queen's influence with the king. Desperately homesick in a country that hates her for her nationality and Catholic faith, Henrietta Maria surrounds herself with her "Royal Menagerie of Freaks and Curiosities of Nature"—a "collection" consisting of a giant, two other dwarves, a rope dancer, an acrobat/animal trainer and now Jeffrey, who is dubbed "Lord Minimus." Dropped into this family of misfits, Jeffrey must negotiate a labyrinth of court intrigue and his own increasingly divided loyalties. For not even the plotting of the Duke nor the dangers of a tumultuous kingdom can order the heart of a man. Though he is only eighteen inches tall, Jeffrey Hudson's love will reach far beyond his grasp—to the queen he has been sent to destroy. Full of vibrant period detail, The Queen's Dwarf by Ella March Chase is a thrilling and evocative portrait of an intriguing era.