The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb: A Novel

This is a novelization about Mrs. Tom Thumb who stood 2 feet, 8 inches tall. The novel is told in the first person, Vinnie's (Mrs. TT) and just as the title says, like an autobiography.

I was completely charmed by this little two foot narrator even though she isn't perfect. She is strong, determined, prideful and ashamed both, arrogant, selfish, and yet also extremely loving. Throughout the novel, she does wrong and she does right, just like everyone else and her narrative is very honest.

Branded one of "nature's occasional mistakes" when it became realized that she was never grow past the height of a two year old, Vinnie refuses to let her parents coddle and protect her. She demands to go to school. This is the strong and determined show more Vinnie I admired so. She proves to the town that "little people" have the same abilities to think and learn as every one else and not only excels in school, but becomes a teacher.

She's got a desire to be the center of attention, however, and just settling for being a school teacher in a tiny town isn't satisfying Vinnie. Here's the pride and arrogance. She joins a showboat touring the Mississippi and has an unsavory "manager." This part of her life occurs right before the Civil war breaks out so there is some interesting historical stuff merged in here. She also makes a wonderful friend in a giant woman. This is the nice side of Vinnie. I was very touched.

From the showboat, she goes to P.T. Barnum and here her character starts to change.. and not necessarily for the better. She agrees to a publicity stunt of a marriage, gets her also tiny sister involved in show business (NOT for the right reasons), and there's a baby mishap I don't want to reveal. Here, Vinnie gets selfish. It's all about Vinnie.. except for her sister, Minnie, she doesn't give much thought to others.

But she really does love Minnie and for a while, Minnie somewhat steals the show. I actually cried at one point. Minnie has a sad story. I didn't know whether to call her brave or incredibly dumb, but it is very moving.

I used both the words "ashamed" and "arrogant." A strange combination? How can one be both? This is interesting.. Vinnie is very pleased with herself, sees herself as something really special. After all, she's had tea with the Queen. However, when faced with a troupe of dwarfs while traveling with the Barnum circus, Minnie looks down on them, considers herself above them. Is she really better than them or is she viewing them with shame? Is she afraid she is looking at herself?

"..grotesque, misshapen little people.. "

And later in the book, this made me think on the above further: In her husband's eyes one day, she sees something that she must admit to herself that she sees in her mirror,

"Hurt and determination, both: That's what it was. Hurt at the cruelties the world sometimes threw at us; determination not to let anyone notice...... Perhaps I had also recognized it in the eyes of those misshapen little women from the circus; perhaps I hadn't wanted to.."

So is Vinnie putting on an act? This really made me think about how many of us with disabilities try to cover up our discomfort, our hurt, with pride and arrogance..

There were many laugh out moments too. A scene with Mrs. Putnam was hilarious. Vinnie's wit really comes out at times. Also enjoyed her description of her husband toting around his little pistol on the train and her views on Mormon women. This review is already too long or I would quote it all.

A beautiful story about an amazing woman who defied all odds, who traveled the world, who touched lives, joined a circus, and so much more. show less

I love this book! I remember seeing a picture of Mrs. Tom Thumb, aka Mercy Lavina Warren Bump Stratton aka Vinnie, and wondering about her marriage. Was she happy? This was years ago. Then when I saw this book, I had to know as much as possible.

From the first page I was hooked, even though the book is 412 books long, it galloped along. The more I learned about Vinnie, the more that I wanted to know. I could not stop reading about her adventures, thoughts and feelings. How can I do justice to this book in this review? The best that I can say is “Read It”.

Melanie Benjamin has done an excellent job of pulling together Vinnie’s letters, and information about her from the day that Vinnie was born to forty years before her death. How show more did a woman only 32 inches tall become known around the world. Vinnie could have very easily stayed at home under her parent’s protection with her younger and even shorter sister, Minnie. We would have never known about this unusually spirited woman if she had. Vinnie turned things around, she took her shortness and made it into a reason that queens and kings and other rulers of state wanted to meet her.

I don’t want to tell what happened to spoil it for you but I can tell you what you will feel. You will be shocked, amazed, excited, confused, enlightened, disappointed, sad, happy, and thrilled. I sound like P.T. Barnum, don’t I? That is because even though Vinnie was a star, P.T. Barnum also was her confidant and had a special relationship with him. P.T. Barnum was such a larger than life figure that the author admits that she had to control him for fear of his taking over the book. But Melanie Benjamin succeeded.

So come see, come read about this tiny, intelligent woman who had a mind of her own in the 19th century, see her break barriers, imagine her wedding, as spectacular and Charles and Diana, well, maybe more spectacular. You won’t always like her but you will still want to know about her. You’ll understand when you read the book.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to be amazed.

I received this book as a part of the Amazon Vine program and that in no way influenced my opinion of this book. show less

**possible spoilers**

Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump was born to a farmer and his wife in Middleborough, Massachusetts. She was born a normal sized baby, but "Vinnie" and one of her siblings, affectionately called Minnie by the family, were what was known as proportionate dwarfs - Vinnie was under three feet tall and Minnie was even smaller. Determined not to let her size define her, she left a respectable job as a schoolteacher in Middleborough to travel on a Mississippi showboat and later worked with P.T. Barnum.

It was hard for me to get into the story at first. I had a tough time because Vinnie was constantly saying that she didn't like how people only saw her size, when that was at least in part my interest in reading her story in the show more first place. Though a fictional story, Vinnie's voice is strong and thoroughly pragmatic. I think it's difficult to write convincing fiction from a real person's point of view, because readers can always question an author's point of view. And I did. I questioned whether Vinnie was so very pragmatic - nearly every relationship she has, except that with Minnie, is practical. Vinnie wasn't always entirely likeable. I didn't like, for instance, how she became disgusted with people who only saw her size rather than her, all the while behaving in a similar way towards her husband, Charles Stratton ("General Tom Thumb") and Minnie. I read her as feeling a bit superior and became frustrated with the way she'd blame herself for their choices. The tone of the book was a bit too melancholy for my taste. show less

Lavinia Warren was only 32 inches high, but had ambitions that were not limited by her diminutive size. She was a real person, more popularly known as Mrs General Tom Thumb – the wife of P T Barnum’s famous “oddity.” In the midst of Civil War, their wedding was front-page news. They were received by Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, and heads of state around the world. They were befriended by the Astors, Vanderbilts and other high society families. They were the Brad and Angelina of their day, mobbed by crowds wherever they went, written about by reporters, the subjects of gossip and rumor, and victims of their own fame. All of this is true, but this book is a work of fiction.

Benjamin does a wonderful job of bringing Vinnie to show more life. The novel depicts a woman of great intelligence and drive. She is shown to be cunning, witty, talented and strong-willed. She is also vulnerable, frightened, angry, and cold, suppressing her feelings to protect herself as best she can. Her partnership with Barnum is wonderfully imagined and beautifully told. Benjamin gives us a woman who is defined by her character, not her height. All this is presented against a backdrop of historical events – Civil War, the opening of the West, and life in the Gilded Age.

I really liked this book. I was completely mesmerized by Vinnie’s story, and that of the other members of her troupe. I grew up in San Antonio Texas, the home of the Hertzberg Circus Collection. When I was a child I spent many a Saturday visiting the collection, which was housed in the main Public Library downtown. It is the oldest and largest public collection of circus memorabilia in America. There is a significant amount of Tom Thumb memorabilia; one of the artifacts is the coach custom-made for General Tom Thumb. Unfortunately, by 2001 the building had deteriorated so much that the collection was at risk. It was moved to storage and is now conserved by the Witte Museum. It is not currently on display, though the many volumes of books and records are available to scholars for research (by appointment only). show less

I am not normally a huge fan of historical fiction, but Benjamin did a great job telling this story. Lavinia Warren is a dwarf, but one of perfect proportions, impressive intellect, a good voice, and a spirit longing for adventure. With no great prospects for her future, Vinnie uses her diminutive size to her advantage and joins a roving troupe of performers and eventually comes to the attention of the Great Barnum and becomes the wife of Charles Stratton, aka General Tom Thumb. Alongside her life, there are fascinating entries from popular magazine and news articles that make the reader aware of the historical events happening in her life: the Civil War, the construction of the RR, the discovery of electricity, etc. A good read.

In an author's note at the end of "The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb," author Melanie Benjamin writes, "I believe that every novel is either a mystery, a tragedy, or a love story -- some are all three -- and it became clear to me that this is a love story."

The key figures in the love story in her 2011 novel are not, as one might suppose, Lavinia Bump (or Vinnie Warren, as she called herself) and General Tom Thumb, one of the most famous couples in America during the Civil War and for a number of years afterward. No, the love of Vinnie's life, as Benjamin tells the story, is P.T. Barnum, the show business impresario of the period who discovered Tom Thumb and soon incorporated Vinnie, and later her even smaller sister, Minnie, into the show more act. Barnum, not the General, is the one man whom she can speak frankly with and pour her heart out to. Vinnie and her husband are never particularly close, except on the stage. He remains at heart ever a child, while she, despite her size, is very much a woman.

Tragedy haunts this story, as well, when Minnie dies in childbirth. Later Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton) dies, from shame in Benjamin's telling, after a hotel fire..

Yet the novel also offers mystery, the mystery being how much of this tale is true and how much is fiction. As she did in "Alice I Have Been," her novel about Alice Liddell (Lewis Carroll's inspiration for "Alice in Wonderland"), Benjamin fills in the blanks left by biographers. And there are always blanks, sometimes significant blanks.

Vinne really did write an autobiography, but it has little to say about her personal life, her motivations or her passions, and certainly nothing about her feelings for either her husband or Barnum. Benjamin has a gift for reading between the lines and inventing plausible explanations for what the biographers can tell us. show less

Lavinia Warren was only 32 inches high, but had ambitions that were not limited by her diminutive size. She was a real person, more popularly known as Mrs General Tom Thumb – the wife of P T Barnum’s famous “oddity.” In the midst of Civil War, their wedding was front-page news. They were received by Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, and heads of state around the world. They were befriended by the Astors, Vanderbilts and other high society families. They were the Brad and Angelina of their day, mobbed by crowds wherever they went, written about by reporters, the subjects of gossip and rumor, and victims of their own fame. All of this is true, but this book is a work of fiction.

Benjamin does a wonderful job of bringing Vinnie to show more life. The novel depicts a woman of great intelligence and drive. She is shown to be cunning, witty, talented and strong-willed. She is also vulnerable, frightened, angry, and cold, suppressing her feelings to protect herself as best she can. Her partnership with Barnum is wonderfully imagined and beautifully told. Benjamin gives us a woman who is defined by her character, not her height. All this is presented against a backdrop of historical events – Civil War, the opening of the West, and life in the Gilded Age.

I really liked this book. I was completely mesmerized by Vinnie’s story, and that of the other members of her troupe. I grew up in San Antonio Texas, the home of the Hertzberg Circus Collection. When I was a child I spent many a Saturday visiting the collection, which was housed in the main Public Library downtown. It is the oldest and largest public collection of circus memorabilia in America. There is a significant amount of Tom Thumb memorabilia; one of the artifacts is the coach custom-made for General Tom Thumb. Unfortunately, by 2001 the building had deteriorated so much that the collection was at risk. It was moved to storage and is now conserved by the Witte Museum. It is not currently on display, though the many volumes of books and records are available to scholars for research (by appointment only). show less