What is it like to be worshipped as a god in one’s lifetime?

In January 1780 the news reached London that Captain Cook had been killed and eaten in Hawaii. The story of his death was met with morbid fascination by the general public, inspiring paintings, poems and even a ballet. This ballet was so violent that one of the dancers accidentally stabbed another during the scene of the attack, yet it was also a fantastic success, touring the theatres of Europe and America. Soon aristocratic women were wearing dresses modelled on the natives who killed Cook, and interest in the explorer’s death continued into the 19th century, until one wit noted that every museum in the world contained a copy of the club that killed him. So, who was it that really deified Cook: the Hawaiians who murdered him or the Europeans who made a martyr of his memory?

Anna Della Subin’s Accidental Gods is filled with soldiers and sailors, rulers and royals, who found themselves worshipped in their own lifetimes.