Sylbaris, Ludger (Louis-Auguste Cyparis) | The man who lived through Doomsday

Sylbaris, Ludger (Louis-Auguste Cyparis)

The Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth. The Only Living Object that Survived the "Silent City of Death" where 40,000 Human Beings were Suffocated, Burned or Buried by One Belching Blast of Mont Pelee's Terrible Volcanic Eruption. Cincinnati & New York: The Strobridge Litho Co., 1903 (no. 80)

Color lithograph poster (29 1/4 x 38 3/4 in.; 727 x 985 mm). Large inset of portrait of Ludger Sylbaris, the sole survivor, large medallion inset depicting his rescue from a prison dungeon; laid down on linen, closed separation at central vertical crease with a bit of recoloring, some closed marginal tears.

The 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique was one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in history. A terrible pyroclastic flow engulfed and destroyed the town of Saint-Pierre, known as "the Paris of the Caribbean," on 8 May 1902. More than 28,000 inhabitants were killed, and only a handful survived, most of whom subsequently succumbed to their burns.

The most famous survivor—often claimed to be the only survivor—lived because he had been imprisoned the previous night for brawling, or worse, in a solitary, partially underground cell. Ludger Sylbaris was rescued four days later and provided the best account of the suddenness, duration, and intensity of the destruction. His crime forgotten, Sylbaris was pardoned and, by now something of a global celebrity, he was engaged by Barnum and Bailey and promoted as "the man who lived through Doomsday" or "the Most Marvelous Man in the World."

REFERENCE:

Exemplars, pp.282–83; cf. Peter Morgan, Fire Mountain: How 30,000 Perished and One Man Survived the World's Worst Volcanic Disaster (2003)