Free Spirits: Twenty true lives from history

A celebration of twenty Oxfordshire characters who ignored the conventions of the day. From the son of a Woodstock hatter who became a pirate to a country vicar who joined a tribe of Aboriginal Autralians, from a Banbury baker who took up the sport of pedestrianism to a scientist who ate the heart of Louis XIV, right through to the much-loved Donkey Man who took to the road with his one-man circus, this collection will lift the spirits of anyone tired of the dull hand of conformity which may seem to some to stifle the joy out of modern life. Careful research has yielded revealing details about previously misunderstood figures in our county's history.