Nearly 125 years after his death, the name P. T. Barnum still inspires wonder. On Sept, 22 at the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport at 2 PM there will be an author's talk and booking by Robert Wilson, members are free, guests are $5.
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 of taking pride in giving crowds their money’s worth and more.
Robert Wilson, the editor of The American Scholar, tells a gripping story in Barnum: An American Life, 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.
About the author:
Robert Wilson is the author of Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation and The Explorer King, a biography of Clarence King. He is the editor of The American Scholar, a former editor of Preservation, and the founding literary editor of Civilization (all three of which won National Magazine Awards during his tenure), a former book editor and columnist for USA Today, and a former editor at The Washington Post Book World. His essays, reviews, and fiction have appeared in numerous publications, including The American Scholar, American Short Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, Smithsonian, The Washington Post Magazine, and The Wilson Quarterly and on the op-ed, opinion, and book review pages of The Boston Globe, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. He lives in Manassas, Virginia.
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