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.
THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly BestsellerFor readers of Orphan Train and The Nightingale comes a “thought-provoking [and] complex tale about two f...
If you liked the Century Trilogy, you’ll love the “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece.”—Booklist, that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career. “Follett risks all and comes out a...
Narrator: John Lee,Richard E. Grant Published: 10/09/2007
The year is 1771. Claire Randall is still an outlander, out of place and out of time. But now she is linked by love to her only anchor--Jamie Fraser. They have crossed oceans and centuries to build a life together in North Carolina. But tensions, bo...
If you liked the Century Trilogy, you’ll love the “extraordinary...monumental masterpiece” (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career.“Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,&r...
Narrator: John Lee,Richard E. Grant Published: 10/09/2007
Inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this powerful debut novel reveals an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets that were hidden for decades. New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her...
“The book is like a salve. I think the world feels disordered right now. The count’s refinement and genteel nature are exactly what we’re longing for.” —Ann Patchett“How delightful that in an era as crude as ours ...
Narrator: Nicholas Guy Smith Published: 09/06/2016
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes...
Narrator: Bernadette Dunne,Elaina Erika Davis Published: 07/05/2000
In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin...
This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov—an unforgettable love story in the midst of atrocity.“The Ta...
{"id":"317766","ean":"9780307713490","abr":"Unabridged","title":"The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb","subtitle":"","author":"Melanie Benjamin","rating_average":"0","narrator":"Kim Mai Guest","ubr_id":"317766","abr_id":"0","ubr_price":"22.50","abr_price":"0.00","ubr_memprice":"14.62","abr_memprice":"0.00","ubr_narrator":"Kim Mai Guest","abr_narrator":"","ubr_length":"Unabridged: 14 hr 40 min","abr_length":"Abridged: "}
