Raised on opposite shores of Lake Ontario in the mid-19th century, two talented young adults begin their journey toward becoming key players in the birth and success of P.T. Barnum’s “Greatest Show on Earth.”
A young man’s destiny
When fourteen-year-old Charley White stops to help with a crippled circus wagon in upstate New York, he has no idea that his act of kindness will alter the course of his life forever. He joins the show for just that one summer, intending to go home again at the end of the season, but he never does.
As the boy grows into a man, he will go from commanding animals to commanding men in a war within a torn nation. But, as the country recovers, Charley’s own journey toward healing comes from returning to the life he loved not so long ago.
A young woman’s search for a new life
Newly un-engaged eighteen-year-old Anna Matchett is determined to start afresh in the US. As she sets off from Canada West for New Orleans, little does she know her journey will be derailed in Cincinnati as rumors of war begin to spread.
Low on funds, the young woman uses her talent for sewing to make a living, until one day she fashions a costume for a handsome blue-eyed acrobat. Falling madly in love, Anna finds herself traveling off with her new husband and the little circus, earning a reputation as a talented seamstress.
The dawn of “The Greatest Show on Earth”
Planning a new circus unlike any other, revolutionary showman P.T. Barnum is determined to recruit the industry’s best talent. And with that, Charley White receives a telegram, Anna Matchett gets a referral, and the rest is history.
Historical References
While “Pet Lions & Well-Dressed Elephants” is a historical novel, the backbone of the story is real and authenticated. The following is a partial list of references for the early story “Pet Lions and Well-Dressed Elephants.” The highlighted text denotes official government records. Most other references are books or newspapers.
Reviews
A circus love story!
Like Forrest Gump in the 20th Century, Charlie White had the knack of being in the right place at the right time for historic events in the 19th Century. While Forrest’s adventures put him in the middle of the Vietnam War and other key political and cultural events of the 20th Century, Charlie’s story includes his service in the American Civil War and being present for key events in circus history in the 19th Century, including the beginning of the PT Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth! Unlike Forrest Gump, who was a fictional character, however, Alasco “Charlie” White was a real person who lived from 1832 until 1909.
Donna Lee Dicksson’s historical fiction: Pet Lions & Well-Dressed Elephants: A Circus Journey to Greatness 1846-1873 chronicles the fascinating lives of a kindly, hardworking circus animal trainer: Charlie White, and another real person: Anna Margaret Matchett. Anna was a highly skilled circus wardrobe mistress who lived from 1842 to 1935. Charlie’s job included taking diligent care of the lions, and Anna’s job included making beautiful wardrobe for the elephants.
Although Dicksson points out that the personal situations and emotions of the characters in her book are purely the product of her imagination, she uses the actual circus routes, dates, times, and places that correspond with the lives of the real Charlie While and Anna Matchett. In doing so, the author was able to provide an historically accurate picture of 19th Century circus life, including moving the circus every day, life on the circus train, care and training of circus animals, and the production of circus wardrobe.
Because the author covers the lives of Charlie and Anna from when they were children until they are in their forties, we learn about the births, deaths, injuries, marriages, and divorces that shaped these two fascinating people. The reader really gets to know them.
Like the Forest Gump story, Pet Lions & Well-Dressed Elephants is an adventure story. It is also a love story about two people who fall in love with the circus and then with each other in the exciting, mysterious, and magical world of the circus in the 19th Century.
Bruce Hawley, President of the Circus Historical Society
Excerpt
Charley was lucky. Although no one had ever said it out loud, he was accepted as one of the insiders. It hadn’t been because of his years with them or because of his fine work that got him in. It was because John-John trusted him…and everyone trusted John-John. The blue-eyed bird man had grown up on a chicken farm and was the kindest, gentlest fellow on the lot. He looked like he could bend iron with his bare hands and yet he got downright sissy when he started talking about his birds. He’d been working for the American Museum at Broadway and Ann Street taking care of Mr. Barnum’s exotics when Mr. Lent talked him into coming to work for him. Now he took care of all the exotic birds in the hall, cleaning pens and feeding them all by himself. It wasn’t unusual to see him sitting on a stool in a bird pen with a fancy chicken perched on his knee. “Birds are downright affectionate,” he would say as he stroked its head. You had to agree with him when you saw just how relaxed that chicken was, eyes closed and making noises that sounded a lot like a cat purring. Neither was it unusual for John-John to take off on his free time to trot over to Barnum’s to visit his old flock. One day he had taken Charley with him. John-John knocked on the back door of the museum and the door-guard waved him in without paying. When the guard moved to stop Charley from drafting in behind him, John-John put his big hand on the guard’s shoulder and said, “He’s with me, Mike. He’s one of us.”
