P.T. Barnum's The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself

Phineas Taylor Barnum is at least as famous for his masterfully constructed public persona as he is for anything he actually did. The gleeful wheeler-and-dealer con-artist cum master of ceremonies has become such a iconic figure of the mid-nineteenth century American love for glitter and flash that the period is sometimes refered to by critics as the Age of Barnum, a time of brash exhibitionism, aggressive advertising, and downright public fraud, perfectly embodied by the bold and indefatigable Barnum. Of course, when dealing with a man as attentive to appearances as Barnum, any publication is bound to be artfully arranged, so it is with a grain of salt and a gram of good humor that we must approach Barnum's 1855 autobiography The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself.

In his Life we see only what Barnum wants us to see, but his choices in that area are sometimes surprising. His emphasis on his own misunderstood piety and uncredited respect for his audiences is, perhaps, expected, but his stress on the importance of good sportsmanship is more interesting. We tend to think of Barnum as the practical jokester, the con-man, the ultimate huckster, but in his Life, Barnum is the mark as often as he is the man. The Barnum Barnum lets us see knows how to take a joke. Raised to believe he is heir to a small land fortune, an edenic piece of property he has never seen called Ivy Island, Barnum proves a remarkably good sport when he discovers he has in fact been the butt of a decade-long, community-wide practical joke. When Ivy Island turns out to be a nasty piece of essentially worthless swampland, the disappointed Barnum takes it on the chin and soon begins to laugh about it himself. (That he later uses this land as collateral for a loan is the best kind of comic irony.)

The Life is littered with these kinds of incidents, and in each Barnum proves himself to be the best audience for the practical jokes of others, as willing to laugh at himself as he is to laugh at anyone else. Naturally, this is undoubtedly intended to soften the criticism of his readers. Look, Barnum says, I've been fooled too and I'm laughing about it! (This is precisely the line of reasoning that he would take with the Joice Heth hoax.) But it also calls attention to the links Barnum is drawing between practical jokes and the con. Throughout the Life, Barnum views himself as a practical joker, not a swindler or a cheat. He emphasizes that there is pleasure to be derived from being tricked, as much or more than can be found in straightfoward dealing. Isn't there as much inherent oddness in a monkey's head sewn to the body of a fish as there is in a real mermaid?

His rationalizations tell us a great deal about how Barnum wanted his audience to interact with him, but that is not the greatest pleasure of the book. The greatest delight to be had from the Life comes from Barnum's commitment to disclosure. By telling us how he pulled off his greatest tricks he lets us in on the private joy of the con-man that Poe described. Barnum lets us join him in the grin.