Life of General Tom Thumb. Moore & Nims, Troy. New York. [1863-69].

Includes 'Alphabet in Verse', 'Pretty Puss', 'Willy and Frank Too Late', 'Lazy Bob', and 'Billy's Rabbits'. [3], 4-64 pages. Woodcut full-page illustration. Includes Tom Thumb's marriage to Lavinia Warren on February 10th, 1863. Pages uniformly age-toned. Inner hinge cracked but holding firmly. All edges gilt. Original cream endpapers. Contemporary ink ownership signature on front free endpaper. Provenance: Ida M. Hughes. 38 x 55 mm. Original beige cloth; spine with six horizontal gilt rules; covers with blind ruled borders; front cover with gilt blocked titling. Binding very slightly rubbed. Not in Bondy, nor Spielmann. Bradbury, 157. Welsh, 6773. OCLC, . WorldCat locates  copies worldwide, all in North America.  P.T. Barnum originally monetised Charles Stratton as an 11-year-old from England re-named "General Tom Thumb", even though he was a 4-year-old local child from Connecticut. Dating from 1863–1869, this publication helped cement Barnum's mythmaking into the public consciousness and spans the period of Stratton’s sensational 1863 marriage to Lavinia Warren - a wedding so sensational it briefly knocked the American Civil War off the newspapers' front pages.