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Author: Phineas Taylor Barnum
Publisher: New York : Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231054126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351
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Book Description
Gathers correspondence by the famous American showman to his family, friends, writers, businessmen, and other public figures
Author: Phineas Taylor Barnum
Publisher: New York : Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231054126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351
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Book Description
Gathers correspondence by the famous American showman to his family, friends, writers, businessmen, and other public figures
Author: A. H. Saxon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231056878
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512
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Book Description
I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet, beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a show, Phineas Taylor Barnum wrote to a publisher in 1860. "I don't believe in 'duping the public,' but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them." 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 of P.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."
Author: Michael Daly
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802194575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403
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Book Description
The true story of a nineteenth-century elephant caught between warring circuses and battling scientists, from the author of The Book of Mychal. In 1903, on Coney Island, an elephant named Topsy was electrocuted. Many historical forces conspired to bring her, Thomas Edison, and those 6,600 volts of alternating current together that day. Tracing them all in Topsy, journalist Michael Daly weaves together a fascinating popular history, the first book to tell this astonishing tale. At the turn of the century, circuses in America were at their apex with P. T. Barnum and Adam Forepaugh competing in a War of the Elephants. Their quest for younger, bigger, or more “sacred” pachyderms brought Topsy to America. Fraudulently billed as the first native-born elephant, Topsy was immediately caught between the disputing circuses as well as the War of the Currents, in which Edison and George Westinghouse (and Nikola Tesla) battled over the superiority of alternating versus direct current. Rich in period Americana, and full of circus tidbits and larger than life characters, Topsy is a touching and entertaining read. “A rollicking pachydermal tale . . . A summer escape.” —The New York Times “A nineteenth-century reality show that boggles the mind as the pages fly by with events that have you laughing out loud one moment and gasping in disbelief the next.” —Tom Brokaw “I’ve always respected Michael Daly as a great New York writer . . . He humanizes and speaks for those animals who cannot speak. He touches the hearts of those of us who are not animal activists.” —James McBride “A skillfully told and admirably researched reminder of a time not as long ago as we’d like to think.” —The Wall Street Journal
Author: Phineas Taylor Barnum
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252030543
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
The Colossal P. T. Barnum Reader reveals the trailblazing American showman as, by turns, a moral reformer, a habitual hoaxer, an insightful critic, a savvy "puffer," a master of images, a sparkling writer, a relentless provocateur, and an early advocate of "family" entertainments. Taken together, these selections paint a new and more complete portrait of this complex man than has ever been seen before. James W. Cook's The Colossal P. T. Barnum Reader includes large excerpts from Barnum's semi-autobiographical novel The Adventures of an Adventurer (1841), his European letters from 1844-46 informing readers of the New York Atlas of his reception by royalty overseas, selections from his Ancient and Modern Humbugs of the World (Barnum's 1864-65 insider's look into nineteenth-century frauds), and much, much more. The book also features vintage photographs and reproductions of difficult-to-find images from Barnum's two-decade collaboration with the prominent New York lithographers Currier and Ives. Collectively, these materials help us to track the shifting personas of the great showman, his promotional choices, and his publics across the nineteenth century. Book jacket.
Author: Robert Wilson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501118714
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
“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 Journal P.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 the most important figures in American history. 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, who, from birth to death, 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 recover and succeed again. As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy 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. In this “engaging, insightful, and richly researched new biography” (New York Journal of Books), 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.
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520261348
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
Collects two hundred letters from readers of Mark Twain to the author himself, offering a glimpse into the lives and sensibilites of nineteenth-century children, preachers, con artists, inmates, and other fans of the author's work.
Author: Joel J. Orosz
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817312048
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
The author researched ten museums founded prior to 1870, using primary sources. Those chosen comprised a geographically diverse sample of pre-1870 American museums and covered a range of disciplines, among them art, history, and natural science.
Author: Daniel S. Burt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313017263
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 636
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Book Description
From Marilyn to Mussolini, people captivate people. A&E's Biography, best-selling autobiographies, and biographical novels testify to the popularity of the genre. But where does one begin? Collected here are descriptions and evaluations of over 10,000 biographical works, including books of fact and fiction, biographies for young readers, and documentaries and movies, all based on the lives of over 500 historical figures from scientists and writers, to political and military leaders, to artists and musicians. Each entry includes a brief profile, autobiographical and primary sources, and recommended works. Short reviews describe the pertinent biographical works and offer insight into the qualities and special features of each title, helping readers to find the best biographical material available on hundreds of fascinating individuals.
Author: Christoph Irmscher
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978805861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404
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Book Description
Newly expanded and in full color, this groundbreaking book argues that early American natural historians had a distinctly poetic sensibility, producing work that had a visionary intensity. Covering naturalists from John James Audubon to PT Barnum, it considers not only natural history writing, but also illustrations, photographs, and actual collections of flora and fauna. Photography and all associated expenses made possible by a generous grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund
Author: James Karman
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804781729
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1409
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Book Description
The 1930s marked a turning point for the world. Scientific and technological revolutions, economic and social upheavals, and the outbreak of war changed the course of history. The 1930s also marked a turning point for Robinson Jeffers, both in his career as a poet and in his private life. The letters collected in this second volume of annotated correspondence document Jeffers' rising fame as a poet, his controversial response to the turmoil of his time, his struggles as a writer, the growth and maturation of his twin sons, and the network of friends and acquaintances that surrounded him. The letters also provide an intimate portrait of Jeffers' relationship to his wife Una—including a full account of the 1938 crisis at Mabel Dodge Luhan's home in Taos, New Mexico that nearly destroyed their marriage.
