Christopher Corbett reviews Michael Daly’s Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison, the story of dueling impresarios and the American appetite for curiosities surrounding a grim and poignant recount of the public electrocution of a so-called rogue circus elephant.
“‘Topsy’ is a fascinating but disturbing story, a skillfully told and admirably researched reminder of a time not as long ago as we’d like to think,” said Corbett. “The material is sometimes thin, more the making of a long magazine piece than the subject for a 345-page book, but it is full of fabulous characters.”
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