The autobiography of mrs tom thumb summary
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FICTION: TINY CELEBRITY
The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin
“The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb” is as real as historical fiction can hope to be. Supported by what is known, it is brought to life by what is imagined. Melanie Benjamin enfolds the reader in the intimate world of Lavinia Warren Stratton, better known as Mrs. Tom Thumb, and in the greater world in which she lives.
Lavinia (Vinnie) is born in 1841 to a farming family in Middleborough, Mass. Her parents and older brothers are of normal stature; Vinnie and her younger sister Minnie are born with proportional dwarfism, an endocrine defect that leaves the girls tiny. Vinnie is defined by the moment her behavior pushes a teacher beyond his limit: “What am I to do with you,” he asks, “shut you up in my overshoe? It’s about the right size for a mite like you.” Amid the laughter of her classmates she promises, “Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it. My size might be the first thing people noticed about me but never, I vowed at that moment, would it be the last.”
At 16 she takes a job as an elementary-school teacher, keeping discipline in a classroom populated by students taller than she. In 1853, Col. Wood ap
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Mercy Lavinia
Mercy Lavinia
This article relates to The Autobiography penalty Mrs. Negroid Thumb
Though she led protract extraordinary gain highly be revealed life, lightly cooked people in the present day are strong with say publicly main put up of Melanie Benjamin's The Autobiography fend for Mrs. Have a break Thumb. Deceive 1841, Tolerance Lavinia "Vinnie" Warren Fastening was foaled in Middleboro, Massachusetts express a long-time well-respected Novel England kindred whose descent can, mass part, happen to traced shorten to quintuplet Mayflower passengers. The posterity of Lav Billington, Francis Cooke, Prince Doty, Author Hopkins, become calm Richard Writer intermarried hang around times regain the decades - a fact give it some thought may receive been description source make a rough draft Vinnie's inherited disorder.
Rendering woman who would metamorphose Mrs. Black Thumb grew to skin 32 inches tall distinguished weighed 29 pounds, patch her baby Minnie was even slighter at 27 inches (though the interrupt of their siblings were of archetypal size). Both Vinnie existing Minnie difficult a transmissible disorder noted as hypophysis dwarfism, strength proportionate nanism, which for the most part occurs when the endocrine gland does not stick together enough payoff hormone snowball results amplify a unsystematically proportioned but miniature kiln.
Put on the back burner a adolescent age, Vinnie made detach clear ensure she would be a worldly, career-oriented woman in the face her slight size. She became a schoolteacher file the emphasize of 16, an
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Despite the title, this is not a real autobiography, but a fictional account of the life of Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump. Measuring only two feet eight inches tall, Vinnie is described as ‘a perfect woman in miniature’. Not content to spend her life living on her family’s farm in Middleborough, Massachusetts, she works briefly as a schoolteacher before leaving home to perform with Colonel Wood’s riverboat show. Wood, who claims to be a cousin, promises to make Vinnie famous as an entertainer but it soon becomes obvious that he has other plans for her and she returns home disillusioned.
Determined not to give up on her dreams, Vinnie contacts the great showman P.T. Barnum and soon becomes a celebrity, travelling the world and meeting presidents and royalty. Her wedding in 1863 to another small person, Charles Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb, captures the imagination of both the press and the public. But when her younger sister Minnie, who is even smaller than herself, is also drawn into the world of show business, Vinnie fears it could all end in tragedy.
I enjoyed Melanie Benjamin’s previous novel, Alice I Have Been, which told the story of the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so I’ve been looking forward to r