Can I read Topsy : The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P. T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison on EtoBox?

Topsy : The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P. T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison by Michael Daly is a performing arts available to read on EtoBox.

What is Topsy : The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P. T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison about?

The true story of a nineteenth-century elephant caught between warring circuses and battling scientists, from the author of The Book of Mychal. In 1903, on Coney Island, an elephant named Topsy was electrocuted. Many historical forces conspired to bring her, Thomas Edison, and those 6,600 volts of alternating current together that day. Tracing them all in Topsy, journalist Michael Daly weaves together a fascinating popular history, the first book to tell this astonishing tale. At the turn of the century, circuses in America were at their apex with P. T. Barnum and Adam Forepaugh competing in a War of the Elephants. Their quest for younger, bigger, or more “sacred” pachyderms brought Topsy to America. Fraudulently billed as the first native-born elephant, Topsy was immediately caught between the disputing circuses as well as the War of the Currents, in which Edison and George Westinghouse (and Nikola Tesla) battled over the superiority of alternating versus direct current. Rich in period Americana, and full of circus tidbits and larger than life characters, Topsy is a touching and entertaining read. “A rollicking pachydermal tale... A summer escape.” —The New York Times “A nineteent

Who reads Topsy : The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P. T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison?

Author

Michael Daly

Publisher

Atlantic Monthly Press

Published

2013

Language

EN

ISBN

9780802194572

Category

performing arts

Subjects

History, Nature, Science

Rating

4.1 / 5 (74 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14