“Robert Wilson’s Barnum, the first full-dress biography in twenty years, eschews clichés for a more nuanced story…It is a life for our times, and the biography Barnum deserves.” —The Wall Street JournalP.T. Barnum is the greatest showman the world has ever seen. As a creator of the Barnum & Baily Circus and a champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and “humbug,” he was the founding father of American entertainment—and as Robert Wilson argues, one of th...

P. T. Barnum emerges here as one of America's most dazzling contradictions: a born showman, relentless self-promoter, and gifted mythmaker whose life reveals the nation's hunger for spectacle, success, and cleverness. The book treats his autobiography as both indispensable and unreliable, sorting fact from invention to uncover the larger truth behind the legend. It begins in Bethel, Connecticut, where Barnum's sharp mind, practical joking family, strict schooling, and early arithmetic tale...

“Robert Wilson’s Barnum, the first full-dress biography in twenty years, eschews clichés for a more nuanced story…It is a life for our times, and the biography Barnum deserves.” —The Wall Street JournalP.T. Barnum is the greatest showman the world has ever seen. As a creator of the Barnum & Baily Circus and a champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and “humbug,” he was the founding father of American entertainment—and as Robert Wilson argues, one of th...

Firecrackers had just celebrated the thirty-fourth year of the Independence of the United States in the small town of Bethel, Connecticut, when the first son by his second wife was born to Philo F. Barnum. P. T. Barnum was born on July 5, 1810. He arrived late. It was a pity, for he would so much have enjoyed being born on the Fourth of July. He himself wrote that after peace and quiet were restored, and the audience had regained their seats, he made his début. Probably his tardiness was f...

From his stunning discovery of Tyrannosaurus rex one hundred years ago to the dozens of other important new dinosaur species he found, Barnum Brown led a remarkable life (1873–1963), spending most of it searching for fossils—and sometimes oil—in every corner of the globe. One of the most famous scientists in the world during the middle of the twentieth century, Brown—who lived fast, dressed to the nines, gambled, drank, smoked, and was known as a ladies’ man—became as legendary as...

GIANT ACTION! GIANT ADVENTURE!THE GUNSMITH GIANTBARNUM AND BULLETSpecial Giant EditionManhattan may have the greatest show on earth, but New York's never seen a performer like the Gunsmith!Clint Adams was heartbroken, but not over a woman. He was suffering because he'd had to put his horse, Duke, out to pasture. So where better to get it off his mind and have a little fun than New York City?But the Gunsmith's reputation precedes him and it's ...

Barnum Brown's (1873-1963) parents named him after the circus icon P.T. Barnum, hoping that he would do something extraordinary--and he did! As a paleonotologist for the American Museum of Natural History, he discovered the first documented skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as most of the other dinosaurs on display there today.An appealing and fun picture book biography, with zany and stunning illustrations by Boris Kulikov, BARNUM'S BONES captures the spirit of this remar...

The Barnum Museum is a combination waxworks, masked ball, and circus sideshow masquerading as a collection of short stories. Within its pages, note such sights as: a study of the motives and strategies used by the participants in the game of Clue, including the seduction of Miss Scarlet by Colonel Mustard; the Barnum Museum, a fantastic, monstrous landmark so compelling that an entire town finds its citizens gradually and inexorably disappearing into it; a bored dilettante who con...

A diva and a showman work together to make history, finding romance along the wayAfter Queen Victoria, Jenny Lind is the most famous woman in Europe. A Swedish soprano with a voice like an angel's and a temperament to match, she is in Vienna when she meets the shortest man she has ever seen. General Tom Thumb is a three-foot-tall sensation whom P. T. Barnum has made one of the wealthiest men in the world. Thumb arrives with a message from Barnum offering Lind more m...

To Millicent Brewer, Barnum may as well be Poseidon when he walks out of a rip current’s swell in the Pacific Ocean to save her five-year-old son from drowning. Jonah is her whole world. However, Millie’s divorce taught her to avoid tall, gorgeous men—badasses her sister Denny calls them. And the glow in Barnum’s eyes stirs her. No. Not merely gratitude. More like an emotional alarm prompting her to remain on her guard.Trouble emerges in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with two murders at t...

A lampooning of P. T. Barnum's Jenny Lind song contest.Created by William Allen Butler (1825—1902) and published in 1850.Transcribed and edited as E-book by Jeffrey Merrow.Contents:Volunteer OdeThe Manager and the NightingaleBarnumopsisThe Zephyr SongBroadside“At Midnight in his Downy Bed”Sweet FifteenTell me not in Spiteful NumbersSuch people I never have met“O L...

P. T. Barnum's career of showmanship and charlatanry was marked by a surprising undercurrent of honesty and forthrightness. His exuberant autobiography forms a happy combination of all those traits, revealing the whole story of his world-famous hoaxes and publicity stunts. Here is a pageant of nineteenth-century America's gullibility and thirst for marvels, as told by the master of revels himself.A born storyteller, Barnum recalls his association with Tom Thumb, his audience with Q...