This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
BARNUM, Phineas Taylor. THE LIFE OF P.T. BARNUM. New York: Redfield, 1855. First edition. Publisher’s brown embossed cloth, spine lettered and stamped in gilt. Engraved portrait frontispiece of Barnum behind tissue. Illustrated, including an engraved image of the Fiji Mermaid. 8vo. Foxed, else very good. A presentation copy, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED on the title page by Barnum: “To Miss Anna Backe / With the very best respects of the author / P.T. Barnum / Iranistan Dec. 16 1854.” Affixed to the front pastedown is a signed CDV portrait of Barnum dated 1867. This volume was inscribed and signed at Barnum’s Bridgeport mansion, the Moorish revival structure which would be destroyed by fire just three years after the book was published.