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Barnum's Book "Dick Broadhead"

  • 5 Jul 2021 8:53 PM
    Message # 10730410
    Tony Greiner

    In my collection of circus books is one named "Dick Broadhead"  with the author as PT Barnum (I can't get this thing to turn of the italics!)

    Is it really by Barnum?  The title isn't listed in the Wikipedia article about the great man, and I notice that the copyright of the book is by G.W. Dillingham, 1888.

    Did he write this?  Or did DIllingham pen it for Barnum, or did Dillingham just do a blatant rip-off of the old man's name?
  • 6 Jul 2021 7:14 AM
    Reply # 10731391 on 10730410
    Chris Berry

    The book was authorized by Barnum - along with several other children’s books that carry his name. Dillingham was the publisher of many books in the late 1800s and this was one of them. Did the 78 year old Barnum actually write the story himself, or did he use a ghostwriter?  Your guess is as good as mine, but I suggest that it was probably penned by someone else…
  • 6 Jul 2021 10:59 AM
    Reply # 10731872 on 10730410
    Adrienne Saint-Pierre

    I agree with Chris that it was likely written by another person, though I am guessing Barnum would have "directed" the story.  The same year, 1888, he worked with Sarah J. Burke to produce a series of colorful children's books (books to be read to young children), which we have at the Barnum Museum.  They were published both as three separate volumes: Circus, Museum, and Menagerie; and as a single volume.  (He himself presented the full volume to the museum in 1889.)  Considering this time period represents the closing years of his life, and he had suffered a serious illness in the 1880s,  I'm sure he found it was more efficient and productive to have other people do much of the work.
  • 16 Jul 2021 12:32 PM
    Reply # 10756254 on 10730410
    Adrienne Saint-Pierre

    This is a follow-up to the question about the authorship of the book Dick Broadhead.  I was recently looking at an old biography titled simply Barnum, by M.R. Werner, which you can find on googlebooks.  It was published in 1923.  Werner lists the Dick Broadhead book in the Bibliography and states that it was written by the circus press agent and published under Barnum's name.  This offers a clue from closer to the time period in which the DB book came out.
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