P. T. Barnum: The Legend And The Man

Nearly a century after his death, every American knows something about P. T. Barnum and his many personae: we know him as a circus proprietor and founder of 'The Greatest Show On Earth, ' or we know him as the discoverer of General Tom Thumb, the midget, and the impresario of the renowned Swedish singer Jenny Lind, or perhaps we know him as a man addicted to practical jokes, whose most memorable pronouncement is supposed to have been 'there's a sucker born every minute.' In this colorful biography Arthur Saxon explores this 'legend in his own time, ' and presents a truer, less cliche-ridden picture of the man than anyone so far has done.

The name P.T. Barnum is virtually synonymous with the fine art of self-advertisement and the apocryphal statement, "There's a sucker born every minute." Nearly a century after his death, Barnum remains one of America's most celebrated figures.

In the "Selected Letters of P.T. Barnum," A.H. Saxon brings together more than 300 letters written by the self-styled "Prince of Humbugs." Here we see him, opinionated and exuberant, with only the rarest flashes of introspection and self-doubt, haggling with business partners, blustering over politics, and attempting to get such friends as Mark Twain to endorse his latest schemes.

Always the king of showmen, Barnum considered himself a museum man first and was forever on the lookout for "curiosities," whether animate or inanimate. His early career included such outright frauds as Joice Heth, the "161-year-old nurse of George Washington," and the Fejee Mermaid-the desiccated head and torso of a monkey sewn to the body of a fish. Although in later years he projected a more solid, respectable image-managing the irreproachable "legitimate" attraction Jenny Lind, becoming a leading light in the temperance crusade, founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus-much of his daily existence continued to be unabashedly devoted to manipulating public opinion so as to acquire for himself and his enterprises what he delightedly termed "notoriety."

His famous autobiography, "The Life ofP.T. Barnum," which he regularly augmented during the last quarter century of his life, was itself a masterpiece of self-promotion. "Will you have the kindness to announce that I am writing my life & that fifty-seven different publishers have applied for the chance of publishing it," he wrote to a newspaper editor, adding, "Such is the fact-and if it wasn't, why still it ain't a bad announcement."

The "Selected Letters of P.T. Barnum" captures the magic of this consummate showman's life, truly his own "greatest show on earth."