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Author: Barnum, P.T.
Title: Letter from P.T. Barnum discussing a biographical sketch that had been requested
Place Published: Bridgeport, CT
Publisher:
Date Published: August 18, 1890
Description:

Autograph letter signed P.T. Barnum, 19 lines, in ink, on one side of letterhead of Paul Smith's Adirondack Mountains, Franklin Co., N.Y. 22.7x15 cm (9x6").

The great showman and circus impresario Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891), writes to (most likely, the recipient being indistinct) Alice Graham Lanigan, who was to author, the following year, the article "Mrs. Phineas T. Barnum," printed in the Ladies Home Journal. Barnum and his wife have just returned to Bridgeport, and are happy to oblige Ms. Lanigan's request, but it will likely take more space than apparently would be allowed.

In part:

"...The literary lady friend and neighbor to whom I sent your questions is capable of writing a smooth & very intersting sketch but she informs me that it [is] impossible within the space of eight hundred words... She says she can accomplish it ito my & your satisfaction if you will let her use eighteen hundred words. Of course the sketch will cost you nothing and if the portrait is not too large I repeat you can have the use of the princess (? or process?) cut which appeard in the London Ladies Pictorial... I am truly yours P.T. Barnum." It is not know if the "literary lady friend" actually existed, or was actually Barnum's wife or even Barnum himself - his veracity, like many entertainers' and politicians', was open to question.