Books: The Fabulous Forties*

Albinos, Charles Dickens, Croup

The Story. America's "Awkward Age," depicted to perfection— 1840-1850, the days of hair-oil and Ascot ties—of paternal editorials in the Press and family albums in the Home—of P. T. Barnum and his "industrious fleas," his "Anatomical Venus," his "Magnificant Moving Diorama of the Funeral of Napoleon Bonaparte," his educated dogs, his Albinos, his questionable "Fejee Mermaid" (which turned out to be a gruesome object "made from parts of a monkey and a fish, and purchased from a Japanese sailor who must have had a great deal of time on...