The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb

A Novel

By: Nicholas Rinaldi

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Paperback | 21 July 2015

At a Glance

Paperback
384 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.32 x 13.34 x 2.54

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An irresistible novel that “charts a harrowing tour through the Civil War” (Connecticut Post) and chronicles the life of Tom Thumb—the tiny man who became, in his time, America’s most famous entertainer.

“I was four years old when Barnum discovered me, and soon to turn five when I first appeared on the big stage of his American Museum.” So begins the story of Tom Thumb, who at just twenty-five-inches tall, rises to global fame as America’s most beloved entertainer. With his parents’ blessing, Tom comes of age in Barnum’s five-story gallery of oddities, exploring its mystical artifacts and exotic animals between his performances to sold-out crowds. One day in the museum’s basement menagerie, Tom meets a new performer, Lavinia Warren, who stands three inches shorter than he. It’s love at first sight, and Barnum quickly arranges the largest wedding reception New York City has ever seen. As cannon fire echoes across Bull Run and Antietam, both North and South are briefly united by their fascination with “General” Tom Thumb and his beautiful, petite wife.

Despite the Civil War, Tom and Lavinia embark on a honeymoon tour, where they encounter cities and people ravaged by the ongoing conflict. But as the tour winds down, an unexpected danger follows Tom and Lavinia back home.

Witty, lyrical, and with a colorful cast of notable figures of the period, The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb is an evocative, poignant imagining of one man’s story, from a “master of elegant prose and psychological insight” (Entertainment Weekly).

Industry Reviews

“Nicholas Rinaldi is a writer I’ve admired for some time, but his latest — The Remarkable Courtship of General Tom Thumb — took me by surprise. It’s a stunning tour of an era, an American psychological landscape, with its bravura and tragic headstrong drive to command more and more of the world in every sense. Rinaldi doesn’t really have to make it up. The absurd history leaps at him. But he catches it, shapes and gives it body and language. This is an achievement — a lively, instructive romp that tells us as much about our time as ‘back then.’”

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