In her national bestseller Alice I Have Been, Melanie
Benjamin imagined the life of the woman who inspired Alice
in Wonderland. Now, in this jubilant new novel, Benjamin
shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female
figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who
became a nineteenth century icon and inspiration—and whose
most daunting limitation became her greatest strength.
“Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would
define it.”
She was only two-foot eight-inches tall, but her legend
reaches out to us more than a century later. As a child,
Mercy Lavinia “Vinnie” Bump was encouraged to live a life
hidden away from the public. Instead, she reached out to the
immortal impresario P. T. Barnum, married the tiny superstar
General Tom Thumb in the wedding of the century, and
transformed into the world’s most unexpected celebrity.
Here, in Vinnie’s singular and spirited voice, is her
amazing adventure—from a showboat “freak” revue where she
endured jeering mobs to her fateful meeting with the two men
who would change her life: P. T. Barnum and Charles
Stratton, AKA Tom Thumb. Their wedding would captivate the
nation, preempt coverage of the Civil War, and usher them
into the White House and the company of presidents and
queens. But Vinnie’s fame would also endanger the person she
prized most: her similarly-sized sister, Minnie, a gentle
soul unable to escape the glare of Vinnie’s spotlight.
A barnstorming novel of the Gilded Age, and of a woman’s
public triumphs and personal tragedies, The Autobiography of
Mrs. Tom Thumb is the irresistible epic of a heroine who
conquered the country with a heart as big as her dreams—and
whose story will surely win over yours.
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