Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of. By David Carlyon. New York: Public Affairs, 2001; pp. xix + 506. $30.00 hardcover

Extract

For readers of this journal and certainly for students of the American circus, the subtitle of this book (“The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of”) is an exaggeration that serves (as does the dust jacket) as a kind of circus bally to get the attention of the reader. Dan Rice's position is surely secure in the history of the American circus, both as a pioneer circus entrepreneur and as the greatest American clown of the nineteenth century, a presence as well known in his own time as the great P. T. Barnum.