Barnum: An American Life

Time to Read
7 hrs 16 mins

Reading Time

7 hrs 16 mins

How long to read Barnum: An American Life?

The estimated word count of Barnum: An American Life is 108,810 words.

A person reading at the average speed of 250 words/min, will finish the book in 7 hrs 16 mins. At a slower speed of 150 words/min, they will finish it in 12 hrs 6 mins. At a faster speed of 450 words/min, they will finish it in 4 hrs 2 mins.

Barnum: An American Life - 108,810 words
Reading Speed Time to Read
Slow 150 words/min 12 hrs 6 mins
Average 250 words/min 7 hrs 16 mins
Fast 450 words/min 4 hrs 2 mins
Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson
Authors
Robert Wilson

More about Barnum: An American Life

108,810 words

Word Count

for Barnum: An American Life

11 hours and 42 minutes

Audiobook length


Description

“Robert Wilson’s Barnum, the first full-dress biography in twenty years, eschews clichés for a more nuanced story…It is a life for our times, and the biography Barnum deserves.” —The Wall Street JournalP.T. Barnum is the greatest showman the world has ever seen. As a creator of the Barnum & Baily Circus and a champion of wonder, joy, trickery, and “humbug,” he was the founding father of American entertainment—and as Robert Wilson argues, one of the most important figures in American history. Nearly 125 years after his death, the name P.T. Barnum still inspires wonder. Robert Wilson’s vivid new biography captures the full genius, infamy, and allure of the ebullient showman, who, from birth to death, repeatedly reinvented himself. He learned as a young man how to wow crowds, and built a fortune that placed him among the first millionaires in the United States. He also suffered tragedy, bankruptcy, and fires that destroyed his life’s work, yet willed himself to recover and succeed again. As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy throughout his life—yet he was also a man of strong convictions, guided in his work not by a desire to deceive, but an eagerness to thrill and bring joy to his audiences. He almost certainly never uttered the infamous line, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” instead taking pride in giving crowds their money’s worth and more. Robert Wilson, editor of The American Scholar, tells a gripping story in Barnum, one that’s imbued with the same buoyant spirit as the man himself. In this “engaging, insightful, and richly researched new biography” (New York Journal of Books), Wilson adeptly makes the case for P.T. Barnum’s place among the icons of American history, as a figure who represented, and indeed created, a distinctly American sense of optimism, industriousness, humor, and relentless energy.