Emperor Norton in popular culture

• John Lumea's ninety essays on Emperor Norton, published from 2013 to the present for The Emperor Norton Trust (previously The Emperor's Bridge Campaign), constitute the most significant body of contemporary Norton research.[1]
• William Drury's biography, Norton I: Emperor of the United States (1986), is recognized as the authoritative book-length historical account of the life of Emperor Norton.
• Allen Stanley Lane's Emperor Norton: The Mad Monarch of America (1939) was the standard biography of Emperor Norton until the publication of Drury's book.
• The 2007 book Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley, by Richard Schwartz, includes a chapter on Emperor Norton.
• Emperor Norton was one of 15 "eccentrics" featured in the student reader, Eccentrics, by Henry and Melissa Billings.
• Giles Milton's book When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain provides a brief description of Emperor Norton's "reign".

Richard Miller's Sparkletack series of historical podcasts includes a celebrated 2005 episode, "Emperor Norton."

• The Duke of Sacramento: A Comedy in Four Acts, by Warren Baer, is an 1856 play based on the "pre-Imperial" career of Joshua Abraham Norton.
• In 1861, the new Tucker's Hall in San Francisco opened with a comic opera titled Norton the First, or, An Emperor for a Day.
• In 1873, in San Francisco, an original burlesque titled The Gold Demon featured future theater impresario David Belasco as Emperor Norton.
• Emperor Norton inspired the character of "the King" in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.[2] Twain was resident in San Francisco during part of Emperor Norton's "reign."
• Emperor Norton appears as himself in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1892 novel The Wrecker, written with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne.
• Christopher Moore's novels Bloodsucking Fiends, A Dirty Job, You Suck: A Love Story, and Bite Me! A Love Story feature a character based on Norton in contemporary San Francisco, referred to as "the Emperor of San Francisco" and accompanied by his dogs Bummer and Lazarus.
• The story and ideas of Emperor Norton are lovingly related in several books by Robert Anton Wilson, most notably The Illuminatus! Trilogy of novels, co-authored with Robert Shea, and a sequel, Schrödinger's Cat.
• One of the lesser characters in Charles Bukowski's novel Factotum is depicted as composing and writing the opera of Emperor Norton.
• Dianne Day's San Francisco-based "Fremont Jones" mystery series includes the novel Emperor Norton's Ghost (1998), in which a friend of the intrepid investigator claims to be communicating with the late Emperor about some unfinished business.
• Emperor Norton is the probable basis for the Selma Lagerlöf novel, Kejsarn av Portugallien (The Emperor of Portugallia), the story of a rural Swedish man so disturbed by his daughter's leaving home that he goes mad and declares himself the emperor of Portugallia, parading through the streets of his village wearing a long robe and a bizarre piece of headgear. The 1925 film The Tower of Lies is based on the book.
• Steve Bartholomew's novel The Imaginary Emperor: A Tale of Old San Francisco was published in 2011.
• David St. John's historical novel An Emperor Among Us presents the story of Emperor Norton's life through the lens of Mark Twain. It was published in 2012.
• L. Neil Smith's novel The Probability Broach in the North American Confederacy Series prominently features action set at Emperor Norton University.
• Emperor Norton and the dogs Bummer and Lazarus make a brief appearance in Barbara Hambly's Ishmael, a novel set in the Star Trek universe.
• T.A. Pratt's novel Blood Engines makes a reference to Emperor Norton through a cameo by Norton's appointed (and very powerful) Court Magician.
• There are references to "The Emperor of San Francisco" in the science fiction novel The Woman Between the Worlds by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre.
• The character of Mr. Crazy in the novel Dark Hearts Of Chicago, by William Horwood and Helen Rappaport, is based on Norton.
• Emperor Norton makes a cameo appearance in the novel The Golden Nineties by Lisa Mason.
• Sara Harvey's short story Allegiance to a Dead Man features the ghost of Emperor Norton as one of the two protagonists. The story was published as an e-book in 2011.
• A short story by Robert Silverberg, "The Palace at Midnight", features a post-apocalyptic California with an Empire of San Francisco. The Emperor at the time of the story is a decrepit and senile Norton the Seventh.
• The San Francisco-based Rock Band Land program of classes and camps for children produced an audio story, King Bobby of the Village Village, in which the main character, King Bobby, appears to be heavily based on Emperor Norton.
• Emperor Norton is a character in Mark Bowles's 2017 alternate history novel, Norton The Third,

• The story of Emperor Norton was used by Neil Gaiman in "Three Septembers and a January", an issue of his Sandman comic-book series (included in the collection Fables and Reflections). Gaiman's Norton is a victim of Despair until Despair's brother, Dream, gives him the dream of royalty. Dream's sister Delirium notes that Norton's fantasy of Imperial power keeps him from true insanity, observing that "he should belong to me, but he doesn't ... his madness keeps him sane." In later issues collected in Worlds' End, it is mentioned that a movement started in San Francisco sought to declare Prez Rickard Emperor of the United States, and a figure resembling Norton appears in one of the later stories marching in a procession.
• The character of "His Imperial Highness Smith" in the Belgian comic Lucky Luke: L'empereur Smith (1976), by Morris and René Goscinny, is loosely based on Norton. In contrast to the historical Norton, at the time that he declared himself emperor, the fictional Smith remains a successful businessman. In fact it is becoming fabulously rich that gave him his delusions of grandeur. He is capable of maintaining his own private army which an outlaw manipulates him into using to "reconquer" the United States before Lucky Luke stops him. In spite of the drama arising from the manipulations, Smith is never described as malicious, probably in respect of the "real" emperor. At the end of the comic book, a page is devoted to a short biography of the real Emperor Norton.
• Ted Naifeh's fantasy comic Polly and the Pirates features an Emperor Joshua who is modeled after Norton.

• Emperor Norton I is the ruler of the Bear Flag Empire (encompassing the modern-day states of California, Oregon, and Washington) in R. Talsorian Games' Castle Falkenstein series of role-playing game. Originally installed as a figurehead by the leaders of the Bear Flag Revolt, he was popularly asked to remain as a beloved monarch after the assassinations of the men that had originally propped him up.
• In Diana: Warrior Princess by Marcus Rowland (a satirical role-playing game with an "alternate" 20th-century setting, which also features such "historical" characters as Wild Bill Gates and Prince Albert Einstein), Emperor Norton is described as the "benign ruler of large parts of America."

A pair of "Emperor Norton Awards" is made annually by Tachyon Publications and Borderlands books, for "extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason."[3][4]

1944 Lu Watters composed a piece entitled "Emperor Norton's Hunch", originally performed and recorded by his Yerba Buena Jazz Band.

1950s Robert B. Aird, founding chairman of the neurology department of the University of California at San Francisco, composed a still-unperformed opera based on Norton's life.

1981 A one-act opera, Emperor Norton, with music by Henry Mollicone and a libretto by John S. Bowman, received its premiere in 1981. It was performed in the fall of 1990 by the West Bay Opera company in Palo Alto, California.

1999 An opera called Emperor Norton of the U.S.A., with music by Jerome Rosen and a libretto by James Schevill, premiered in Davis, California, in 1999.[5]

2003 An opera, I, Norton, by Gino Robair, combines free and conducted improvisation with graphical and conventional scores, and has been performed by many ensembles in North America and Europe.

2005 Emperor Norton: A New Musical, by Kim Ohanneson with songs by Marty Axelrod, premiered at San Francisco's Dark Room Theater in December 2005 and ran there for three months, consistently selling out. A condensed and re-arranged version was presented in July 2006 at the San Francisco Theater Festival, and a revised production with many of the original cast and several new songs began a three-month run at the Shelton Theater in January 2007.

2006 "The Madness of Emperor Norton I", a song by the group The Kehoe Nation, appears on the group's 2006 album Devil's Acre Overture.

2007 "The Emperor", a song with lyrics by Z. Mulls and music by Ron Tintner.

2008 "Emperor Norton", a song by singer-songwriter Matthew Dinario (who records as The Short Wave Mystery) appeared on his 2008 album Okey Dokey.

2010 The musical Norton: America's Forgotten Emperor, with words and music by Bobby McGlynn, was performed at Denison University.

2012

• "Emperor Norton in the Last Year of His Life (1880)", a song by Chuck Prophet, appeared on Prophet's 2012 album, Temple Beautiful.
• "Pope of the Bay (for Emperor Norton)", a song by the group Smooth Toad, appears on the group's 2012 album, Long Old Road.

2013 "Emperor Norton", song by singer-songwriter Steven Crowley.

• Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band, an eclectic jazz and performance art band based in Boston.
• The Sons of Emperor Norton, a San Francisco-based band that perform vintage country and blues, Americana, and rockabilly.
• Emperor Norton's Jazz Band, a high-energy Dixieland ensemble that performs all over the Bay Area.
• The Emperor Norton Ceili Band, an Irish dance band based in San Francisco.
• Protectors of Mexico, an Irish four-piece rock band formed in 2007 but now disbanded.
• Emperor Norton, a progressive rock band formed in York in 2017.

The independent record label, Emperor Norton Records, launched in 1996 and closed in 2004.

The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, a fraternal society focused on the legacy of the Old West, holds Emperor Norton in particular regard. Members of the order have been active in calling for all or part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to be named for Emperor Norton, who set out the original vision for the bridge in 1872.

In the religion of Discordianism, Emperor Norton is considered a Saint Second Class, the highest spiritual honor attainable by an actual (non-fictional) human being. The Principia Discordia — the sacred text of Discordianism — relates that, when the Goddess Eris / Discordia was asked whether She, like Jehovah, had a Begotten Son, She replied with Norton's name. The Principia notes that the Joshua Norton Cabal, a group of Discordians based in San Francisco, has as its slogan:

Everybody understands Mickey Mouse. Few understand Hermann Hesse. Only a handful understood Albert Einstein. And nobody understood Emperor Norton.

In official practice, this phrase is never translated out of Latin, except on certain holidays.

Cacophony Society.

Norton appears on the 10 Valora coin and 5 Valora paper note of the Republic of Molossia — which also has declared part of its backyard to be Norton Park.