Hall of Dirtbags

Wondering if I’ve covered a particular historical dirtbag in the past? Here’s a running list of everyone featured on this Substack so far, alphabetized by last name (when they are a single person with a last name) and updated whenever I can remember to.

Have a recommendation for someone who’s not on this list yet but should be? Let me know!

  • Agrippina the Younger

  • Hans Christian Andersen

  • Eleanor of Aquitaine

  • Julie d’Aubigny

  • Delia Bacon

  • P.T. Barnum

  • Jack Black

  • Helena Blavatsky

  • Jane Boleyn

  • Napoleon Bonaparte

  • Tycho Brahe

  • Sir Francis Bryan

  • George Gordon Lord Byron

  • Caligula

  • Giacomo Casanova

  • King Charles VI of France

  • Barthélemy de Chasseneuz

  • Georges Danton

  • Henry Stuart Lord Darnley

  • John Dee

  • Robert Deveraux

  • Sergei Diaghilev

  • False Dmitri (I, II, and III)

  • Lord Alfred Douglas

  • Vlad Dracula

  • Queen Eadburh of Wessex

  • Thomas Edison

  • Empress Elizabeth of Russia

  • The Jiajing Emperor

  • Catalina de Erauso

  • Minna and Ada Everleigh

  • King Ferrante of Naples

  • Henry Ford

  • Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox

  • Benjamin Franklin

  • Claudius Galenus

  • King George IV of England

  • Harold Godwinson

  • King Gustav I of Sweden

  • Warren G. Harding

  • Bess of Hardwick

  • Mata Hari

  • Franz Joseph Haydn

  • Ernest Hemingway

  • Victor Hugo

  • Georgie Hyde-Lees

  • King James VI/I of England and Scotland

  • Pope John XII

  • Ben Jonson

  • John Keehan

  • Ned Kelly

  • The Marquis de Lafayette

  • Jean Lafitte

  • Empress Livia of Rome

  • King Ludwig II of Bavaria

  • Sir Thomas Malory

  • Catherine de Medici

  • Vyacheslav Molotov

  • Lola Montez

  • Jeanne de la Motte

  • Friedrich Nietzsche

  • Saint Olga of Kyiv

  • Grigori Orlov

  • The Avignon Papacy (and assorted antipopes)

  • Samuel Pepys

  • Lydia Pinkham

  • Pope Pius XIII

  • The Affair of the Poisons (and assorted poisoners)

  • Grigori Potemkin

  • The Defenestrations of Prague (and assorted defenestrators)

  • Grigori Rasputin

  • Arthur Rimbaud

  • Alice Roosevelt

  • Girolamo Savonarola

  • Thomas Seymour

  • Socrates

  • Pope Stephen VI

  • Saul of Tarsus

  • Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard

  • Jane Toppan

  • William M. “Boss” Tweed

  • Felix Yusupov