“Returning to the big chair, he [Mark Twain], speaking of truth and the like in literature, said that an autobiography was the one work in which a man, against his own will and in spite of his utmost striving to the contrary, revealed himself in his true light to the world.... “‘But in genuine autobiography, I believe it is impossible for a man to tell the truth about himself or to avoid impressing the reader with the truth about himself.... It is not in human nature to write the truth about itself. None the less the reader gets a general impression from an autobiography whether the man is a fraud or a good man. The reader can’t give his reasons any more than a man can explain why a woman struck him as being lovely when he doesn’t remember her hair, eyes, teeth, or figure. And the impression that the reader gets is a correct one.’ “‘Do you ever intend to write an autobiography?’ Kipling asked. “‘If I do, it will be as other men have done--with the most earnest desire to make myself out to be the better man in every little business that has been to my discredit; and I shall fail, like the others, to make my readers believe anything except the truth.’”[1] Even so with Barnum: it is impossible for him to tell the truth about himself, and yet he does not avoid impressing the reader with the truth about himself. No one thanks P. T. Barnum more than I for publishing his voluminous autobiography, for without it this book would have been more difficult, and with it the task of interpreting the story and character of one of the most typical Americans was a business of checking the inaccuracies that necessarily follow from what Mark Twain called the earnest desire to make himself out to be the better man in every little business that has been to his discredit. There was also the work of coördinating the material found in the seven different editions of the autobiography, for Barnum continually found it necessary in later editions to suppress things contained in early editions which seemed unseemly after mature consideration, even though they happened to be the truth about himself. He also added appendices each year towards the end of his career that gave interesting information about his activities, so that in order to get a complete picture of the man from his autobiography it is necessary to read about ten different volumes. After these duties were finished, there remained only the larger task of ferreting out those things which the author of his own life always sees fit to omit entirely. Every eminent or notorious person should write his autobiography, if only to provide his future biographer with a skeleton to articulate.