Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Barnum: An American Life
    Barnum: An American Life
    Barnum: An American Life
    Audiobook11 hours

    Barnum: An American Life

    Written by Robert Wilson

    Narrated by Arthur Morey

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    “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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateAug 6, 2019
    ISBN9781508294184
    Author

    Robert Wilson

    Robert Wilson was born in 1957. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising and trading in Africa. He has travelled in Asia and Africa and has lived in Greece and West Africa. He is married and writes from an isolated farmhouse in Portugal.

    Related to Barnum

    Related audiobooks

    Entertainers and the Rich & Famous For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Spectacular P. T. Barnum

      Jul 19, 2019

      The Spectacular P. T. Barnum
      5 min read

    • Article

      “Getting Thrilled, Titillated Or Angry At Celebrities Can Change How We Think”

      Mar 19, 2020

      Ellie Cawthorne: You argue in the book that celebrity is a slippery concept. How do you define it? Greg Jenner: When I began writing, I made the foolish assumption that there would be a clear-cut definition of celebrity. But a year-and-a-half later

      7 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A With Les Standiford, Author Of ‘Battle For The Big Top’

      Sep 29, 2021

      ‘Battle for the Big Top’ author Les Standiford says that the circus brought Americans together, as well as stood for infinite possibilities.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Sep 29, 2020

      Must See, Must Read
      13 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Aug 31, 2021

      Must See, Must Read
      11 min read

    • Article

      Encounters

      May 13, 2021

      Encounters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Was Burne-Jones A Reluctant Radical?

      Jun 1, 2022

      THE title of this book is, at first glance, a curious one. What exactly was radical about the medievalist, mystical and Michelangelesque paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones? They show a very Victorian dream world, comprising Arthurian

      5 min read

    • Article

      Gangs of New York

      Feb 23, 2023

      Gangs of New York
      8 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Apr 22, 2021

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      Adirondack Blackface

      Dec 24, 2020

      Adirondack Blackface
      9 min read

    • Article

      Tom’s Curious Heirs

      Jan 27, 2022

      AMONG THE MOST TREASURED POSSESSIONS in my study, gathering dust but re-read from time to time, are my bound volumes of The Captain magazine. They are a good selection, amounting to about a quarter of the total, of the output of the magazine during i

      8 min read

    • Article

      An American’s Excellent Essays

      Jul 28, 2022

      ● HOW THEY LOVE AMERICAN voices on Radio 4. If Start The Week is discussing nuclear physics, Third World debt, or beekeeping, you can be sure some professor from the University of Pough-keepsie will be asked to contribute their two penn’orth. Soul Mu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Mar 1, 2022

      Must See, Must Read
      14 min read

    • Article

      Hidden Histories

      Sep 2, 2021

      In 1904, an accomplished young Krio man from a middle-class family in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, set sail from the west African coast to London. Aged just 26, his aim was to make his mark on the literary world. Augustus Merriman-Labor had

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Woman Scorned?

      Feb 8, 2024

      A Woman Scorned?
      8 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      Dec 29, 2020

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      5 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      Sep 29, 2022

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      5 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Feb 17, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Old Un's Notes

      Feb 7, 2024

      The Old Un's Notes
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Landscape Was His Mistress

      Feb 9, 2022

      IN 1802, John Constable wrote seven observations and resolutions about art. In them, among other things, he pledged to follow Nature, to make ‘unaffected’ pictures, and to avoid ‘common place people’. He also declared that ‘there is no easy way of be

      5 min read

    • Article

      What Slim Saw

      Jun 10, 2021

      What Slim Saw
      11 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      Jun 10, 2022

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      5 min read

    • Article

      Fairies And Fake News

      Mar 14, 2024

      Fairies And Fake News
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Supreme Act Of Trust

      Aug 10, 2022

      The Supreme Act Of Trust
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Barnum

    4/5

    29 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Incredible read of a legend . Greatness yeah yeah yeah
    • 4/5
      "Barnum" was a very detailed and interesting book about the life of the greatest showman on earth. Unfortunately, it was a slog to read because Wilson had to pack in as many details as possible. I found myself skipping over passages here and there. Without those details, however, readers would be left without a full grasp of who Barnum was as man, a friend, a family man, and, above all, a crafty businessman. There was was so much to learn about Barnum and his place in history. Taken in small chunks at a time, you'll enjoy learning about the showman
    • 4/5
      I doubt there are many people who have never heard of Barnum. Even if nothing else is known about the man, his longest lasting legacy, his circus, would be known. Long before the circus, his touring with nature's oddities, real or not, was his first endeavour. This brought him into the public eye, where many considered him a con man. A mermaid, a woman said to be George Washingtons nurse and 116 years old were his introduction to the public. This book fills in the blanks, how he got from there to becoming in his later life, altruistic and a sponsor of many worthy projects that benefited many.He was a master at advertising, publicity, knew just how to play the newspapers. Yes, he conned many, but keep in mind they had no tv, so this was amusements that were accepted. He toured with the little general Tom Thumb, and the singer Jenny Kind. He made fortunes, lost fortunes, fire would wild out his house, his businesses, many more than once. He remade himself, time and time again. i truly felt for his wife and children, though there would be heartbreak there as well. He never stopped, going from this to that, even in his seventies.The author, I felt, showed the good with the bad, letting the reader decide how they felt about this man. Flawed, complicated with many mistakes and start overs, but one has to admire his business acumen. His keeping his pulse on what people wanted to see, which he was more than happy to provide. His cavalier attitude towards animals was off-putting at times, and these were difficult parts, but again the author gave it to us straight. Ultimately, he gave much to his home town, among them a public library, church and hospital. This was a very interesting read.The narrator was Arthur Morey and I give his narration four stars as well.
    • 3/5
      Bio of the great American showman P.T. Barnum. The book was interesting enough and I learned things about him that I was surprised as we only see caricatures of him as something of a huckster.The real Barnum comes off more as a upstanding type who led an almost charmed life with his successes albeit off of what today we would probably refer to as spin. He certainly made a fortune, lost it, than made it again even bigger. It was never really equated to today's dollars but it might have put him up in the billionaire status.I was somewhat surprised to see his circus venture came later in life and really his museums and traveling individual shows were most of his life. An interesting man in interesting times.