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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. TOM THUMB
By: Melanie Benjamin
Delacorte Press
August 2011
On Sale: July 26, 2011
448 pages
ISBN: 0385344155
EAN: 9780385344159
Hardcover
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Fiction
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 inspirationβand whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength. βNever would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it.β 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 βVinnieβ 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 worldβs most unexpected celebrity. Here, in Vinnieβs singular and spirited voice, is her amazing adventureβfrom a showboat βfreakβ 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 Vinnieβs fame would also endanger the person she prized most: her similarly-sized sister, Minnie, a gentle soul unable to escape the glare of Vinnieβs spotlight. A barnstorming novel of the Gilded Age, and of a womanβs 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 dreamsβand whose story will surely win over yours.
 Media BuzzDiane Rehm Show - NPR - August 1, 2011
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