Adams, Bluford. E Pluribus Barnum: The Great Showman and the Making of U. S. Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Bailey, James Montgomery. History of Danbury, Conn., 1684–1896. New York: Burr Printing, 1896.
Barnum, P. T. Funny Stories Told by Phineas T. Barnum. New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1890.
———. The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages. New York: Carleton, 1866.
———. The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. New York: Redfield, 1855.
———. Struggles and Triumphs, or, The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. Ed. George S. Bryan. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927. This edition is based on editions of Barnum’s autobiography published in 1855, 1869, and 1889, and includes Nancy Barnum’s “The Last Chapter,” plus excerpts from annual appendices Barnum wrote in his later years. The many different editions of the autobiography featuring these appendices are accessible in digital archives.
Bartlett, A. D. Wild Animals in Captivity. London: Chapman and Hall, 1899.
Bondeson, Jan. The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Bulman, Joan. Jenny Lind: A Biography. London: James Barrie, 1956.
Burrows, Edwin G., and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Clemens, Samuel L. Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old. Hartford, CT: American, 1875.
Conklin, George. The Ways of the Circus; Being the Memories and Adventures of George Conklin, Tamer of Lions. New York: Harper, 1921.
Cook, James W. The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
——— , ed. The Colossal P. T. Barnum Reader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Coup, W. C. Sawdust & Spangles: Stories & Secrets of the Circus. Chicago: Stone & Co., 1901.
Dennett, Andrea Stulman. Weird and Wonderful: The Dime Museum in America. New York: New York University Press, 1997.
Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation. London: Chapman and Hall, 1842.
Doesticks, J. K., and P. B. Philander. Doesticks: What He Says. New York: Edward Livermore, 1955.
Donley, Carol C., and Sheryl Buckley. The Tyranny of the Normal. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1996.
Emerson, George H. “The Barnums.” The Repository, 51–52 (1874), pp. 215–20.
Field, Maunsell B. Memories of Many Men and Some Women. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874.
Fitzsimons, Raymund. Barnum in London. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970.
Foster, George C. New York by Gas-Light. New York: Dewitt & Davenport, 1850.
Freedley, Edwin T. A Practical Treatise on Business: Or How to Get, Save, Spend, Give, Lend, and Bequeath Money. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, 1855.
Goodman, Matthew. The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
Harris, Neil. Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
Holland, H. S., and W. S. Rockstro. Memoir of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt: Her Early Art-Life and Dramatic Career, 1820–1851. 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1891.
Hone, Philip. The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828–1851. Ed. Allan Nevins. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1936.
Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Irving, Washington. Washington Irving’s Sketch-Book. New York: Longmans, Green, 1905.
Kunhardt, Philip B., Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, and Peter W. Kunhardt. P. T. Barnum: America’s Greatest Showman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Leech, Margaret. Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865. New York: Harper & Row, 1941.
Lehman, Eric D. Becoming Tom Thumb: Charles Stratton, P. T. Barnum, and the Dawn of American Celebrity. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2013.
Leland, Charles Godfrey. Memoirs. 2 vols. London: William Heinemann, 1893.
Lewis, John Delaware. Across the Atlantic. London: George Earle, 1851.
Ludlow, Noah M. Dramatic Life as I Found It: A Record of Personal Experience. St. Louis, MO: G. I. Jones, 1880.
McGlinchee, Claire. The First Decade of the Boston Museum. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1940.
Nichols, Thomas L. Forty Years of American Life. 2 vols. London: John Maxwell, 1864.
Northall, William Night. Before and Behind the Curtain: Or, Fifteen Years’ Observations Among the Theatres of New York. New York: W. F. Burgess, 1851.
Orosz, Joel J. Curators and Culture: The Museum Movement in America, 1740–1870. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990.
Reiss, Benjamin. The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum’s America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Reynolds, David S. Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson. New York: Harper, 2008.
———. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
Rosenberg, Charles G. Jenny Lind in America. New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1851.
Ruskin, John. The Works of John Ruskin. Vol. 34. Ed. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. London: George Allen, 1908.
Ryan, Kate. Old Boston Museum Days. Boston: Little, Brown, 1915.
Saxon, A. H. Barnumiana: A Select, Annotated Bibliography of Works by or Relating to P. T. Barnum. Fairfield, CT: Jumbo’s Press, 1995. First supplement in 2000.
———. P. T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
——— , ed. Selected Letters of P. T. Barnum. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
Shultz, Gladys Denny. Jenny Lind: The Swedish Nightingale. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962.
Smith, Albert. “A Go-Ahead Day with Barnum.” In Gottfried August Bürger, ed., Wild Oats and Dead Leaves. London: Chapman and Hall, 1860.
Smith, Sol. The Theatrical Journey-Work and Anecdotal Recollections of Sol Smith. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1854.
Stratton, Charles S. Sketch of the Life, Personal Appearance, Character and Manners of Charles S. Stratton, the Man in Miniature, Known as General Tom Thumb. New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, 1863.
Strong, George Templeton. The Diary of George Templeton Strong. Ed. Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas. 4 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1952.
Thompson, C. J. S. The Mystery and Lore of Monsters. London: Williams & Norgate, 1930.
Twain, Mark. Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, 1852–1890. New York: Library of America, 1992.
Wallace, Irving. The Fabulous Showman: The Life and Times of P. T. Barnum. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.
Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic: New York and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Williams, Robert C. Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom. New York: New York University Press, 2006.
Willis, N. Parker. Memoranda of the Life of Jenny Lind. Philadelphia: Robert E. Peterson, 1851.
Wright, Richardson. Hawkers and Walkers in Early America. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1927.