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Tom Thumb in England

 

(BARNUM). General Tom Thumb Celebrated American Dwarf, Exhibiting Every Day and Evening, In Catlin's Indian Gallery, Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. Charles S. Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb, was born January 11, 1832[!], consequently he is now Twelve Yeas of Age. He is Twenty-Five Inches High, and Weighs Only 15 Pounds.  [Caption title]. 12mo broadsheet, with engraving at head, full text on both sides. [London, Eng.]: J. Mitchell and Co., [1844]. Moderate foxing. $1,500.00

 

Actually, Stratton was born in 1838, and was only 6 years old, not 12, at the time of this appearance in London. "In the fall of 1842 P.T. Barnum staying overnight in a Bridgeport hotel, heard of the local dwarf, drove a quick bargain the parents, taught the boy to dance, sing, tell stories, and strut the stage in various guises, advertised him as 'General Tom Thumb a dwarf eleven years of age, just arrived from England,' and put him on exhibition in his New York museum....He became at once a celebrity; money flowed into Barnum's covvers; and when the two departed for England Jan. 18, 1844, acccompanied by a tutor and the General's parents, the New York municipal brass band and some 10,000 people thronged to the wharf to see them leave.

"In England Barnum achieved even greater success with his protege than in the United States."--DAB.

Our advertising broadsheet is from that very trip, is very rare, and is accompanied by a tiny (1/2" x 1") card of introduction, reading: "Gen. Tom Thumb."