Steve Ward’s genius in biographical storytelling is twofold as it provides a historically accurate account of his subject’s life combined with an insight into their mind.

In By Royal Command; Barnum in Europe we discover how P.T. Barnum ‘aged 33 years, five feet ten and a quarter inch tall’ arrived in Liverpool on the 7th of February 1844. What Ward keeps from the reader, however, is that Barnum described himself as being 6 feet 2 inches tall. We know that what Ward relates as fact can be substantiated by a reliable source – in this instance the National Archives and Records Administration’s Register of Passports 1843 – 1846.

To me, this demonstrates Ward’s tenacious insistence on reporting the truth rather than ingeminating the populist image of Barnum as the Greatest Showman – albeit that Barnum created such a successful marketing machine around him that even during his lifetime he personified the power of fame.

Ward’s portrayal of the man who became known as the Greatest Showman, P. T. Barnum, delves into areas of his business and character that will resound with modern audiences.

These include how he presented Charles Stratton, a six- or seven-year-old boy with dwarfism, as the 12-year-old General Tom Thumb Jnr and advertised him as performing eight hours a day. Ward exposes the rationale behind this change in Stratton’s age and stated duration by situating the occasion within the law at the time; as the Factory Act of 1833 prohibited children under the age of nine from working in paid employment and limited children aged from nine to twelve years to working nine hours per day. Whilst this shows Barnum an entrepreneur who was on top of his game and well-versed in the legislation that would have affected his opportunity for fame and fortune, it also illustrates how he exploited Stratton in an illegal manner.

Ward also raises the question of Barnum’s moral ineptitude regarding how Tom Thumb was encouraged to kiss every female visitor on the lips; bearing in mind his actual age and persona of a young General in uniform. Rather than restrict reporting on this issue to a twenty-first century comment, Ward illustrates his point with recourse to a contemporary newspaper cutting, thereby demonstrating not only his view but that of people who experienced the show that was Barnum and Stratton firsthand.

Dr Deborah Jeffries, Entertainment Historian

*

A readable and enlightening insight to the Prince of Humbugs, the man who knew that ‘the noblest art is that of making others happy’, and whose very life proved his further maxim that ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’.  Dr Ward’s telling of the Barnum story is crowded with silver linings.  No humbug here – enjoy!

Barnum.  The master of making much out of very little.  There is none of Barnum’s famous ‘humbug’ in this account of the man who, by subtlety and persistence, gained Royal patronage and publicity value when he persuaded a Courtier to introduce his General Tom Thumb to the sympathetically amused Queen Victoria. ‘Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd’, as the man himself said.  Dr Steve Ward’s crowded history of the great showman is both readable and enlightening.

Meet the man who gave the world General Tom Thumb, the massive elephant Jumbo, and the exquisite voice of Swedish Nightingale Jenny Lind. An entertaining and knowledgeable history of the Magnificent Showman by one of the world’s leading circus historians.  Like Barnum himself, Dr Ward leaves no stone unturned in revealing the character behind so many ever-bigger ‘humbugs’.

A master of circus history celebrates the founding father of advertising hype.  Larger than life himself, P T Barnum fed a public desire to be ‘humbugged’. His ‘ wonders of the ages’ may have been exaggerated, but his showmanship made him a beloved household name, amusing even Queen Victoria!  Dr Steve Ward introduces us to the reality and the fantasy of the great showman.

Chris Barltrop,  Circus Historian and Ringmaster

*

An in-depth and intriguing account of Barnum’s time in Europe

Charlie Holland, author of Acrobats and Aerialists in Circus and Music Hall, 1850s – 1900s