Barnum An American Life

P.T. Barnum is the greatest showman the world has ever seen: the co-creator of the Barnum & Bailey Circus; the man who made famous worldwide sensations like Jumbo the Elephant, General Tom Thumb, and the "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind. He was the champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and "humbug." He was, as Robert Wilson argues in his authoritative biography P.T Barnum, one of the most important figures in American history.

Nearly 125 years after his death, the name P.T. Barnum still inspires intrigue. Robert Wilson's vivid new biography captures the full vivacity, infamy, and allure of Barnum. From birth to death, Barnum repeatedly reinvented and reformed himself. His is a true rags-to-riches story, as he learned how to wow crowds, built up his own fortune to become one of the first millionaires, then suffered tragedy, bankruptcy, and fires that destroyed his life's work--only to will himself to rebuild and succeed again. He is a man who learned from his mistakes and continued to grow well into old age, reforming from a racist in his youth to an abolitionist and an advocate for black Americans' voting rights. He was a man of strong convictions, guided in his work not by a desire not to deceive but to thrill and bring joy. His audiences might not always get what they expected, he would say, but they always got their money's worth.

P.T. Barnum is imbued with the same high-spirited sense of opportunity and wonder as its subject. It gives Barnum his due as a heroic figure, worthy of long-term appreciation--a man who embodied and helped create a distinctive sense of American optimism, industriousness, humor, and relentless energy.

P. T. Barnum was the greatest showman the world has ever seen: the cocreator of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the man who made worldwide sensations of Jumbo the Elephant, General Tom Thumb, and the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind. He was the champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and "humbug." He was, as Barnum argues, one of the most important Americans of the nineteenth century.

Nearly 125 years after his death, the name P. T. Barnum still inspires wonder. Robert Wilson's vivid new biography captures the full genius, infamy, and allure of the ebullient showman. From birth to death, Phineas Taylor Barnum repeatedly reinvented himself. He learned as a young man how to wow crowds, and built a fortune that placed him among the first millionaires in the United States. He also suffered tragedy, bankruptcy, and fires that destroyed his life's work, yet willed himself to rebuild and succeed again. As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy time and again throughout his life--yet he was also a man of strong convictions, guided in his work not by a desire to deceive but an eagerness to thrill and bring joy to his audiences. He almost certainly never uttered the infamous line, "There's a sucker born every minute," instead taking pride in giving crowds their money's worth and more.

Robert Wilson, editor of The American Scholar, tells a gripping story in Barnum, one that's imbued with the same buoyant spirit as the man himself. Wilson adeptly makes the case for P. T. Barnum's place among the icons of American history, as a figure who represented, and indeed created, a distinctly American sense of optimism, industriousness, humor, and relentless energy.