An unusually fine first edition of Barnum's autobiography.
Barnum, P. T. Struggles and Triumphs, or, Sixty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum, Including Golden Rules for Money-Making. Illustrated and Brought Up to 1889. Written by Himself. Buffalo. The Courier Company. 1889. First Edition. 360pp.
Finely bound in morocco, with author's name in gilt on front cover within gilt borders, spine ornately gilt in compartments, all edges gilt; front joint a little worn, but a very good copy.
Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810 - 1891) was one of America's showmen and circus owner. He is often remembered by the apothegm "There's a sucker born every minute," which although attributed to him is not his coinage. This autobiography was preceded by two other self-promoting books, Life of P. T. Barnum (1854) and The Humbugs of the World (1865) and followed by The Art of Money-Getting (1880). Among his achievements was the promotion of the opera singer Jenny Lind, whose success in America was largely due to Barnum. He changed public attitudes towards the theatre, often regarded as a den of iniquity. The dissociation of sensibilities between the new American republic and its former colonial proprietor is perhaps exemplified in Mark Twain's remark that he loved Barnum's 1854 autobiography; while the British Examiner thought it "trashy," "offensive," and "inspired nothing but sensations of disgust and sincere pity for the wretched man who compiled it.".
