America’s Last Emperor: Bulletin

Chapter Nineteen

Emperor Norton’s First Proclamation in the Daily Evening Bulletin. Courtesy the San Francisco Public Library.

September 17th, 1859

Norton awoke this morning, feeling clear-headed for the first time in a very long time.

He went through his morning ablutions as he had for the previous ten years, but today there was a significance about the ritual he hadn’t expected. He looked at himself in the mirror, yet nothing seemed different. It was…