The Ringlings: Wizards of the Circus by Harlow, Alvin F - (c.1951)

New York: Julian Messner, Inc.. Very Good in Very Good dj. (c.1951). First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [good solid copy with one weird defect: somebody appears to have attacked the front cover with a drill of some sort, resulting in a small hole in the jacket, a similar hole in the book's front cover which didn't fully penetrate the cover except at the tip, and much smaller (like pen-point-size) holes in about the first 15 pages; additionally the jacket has a small tear and associated wrinkling at top corner of rear panel, and some light soiling and edgewear]. (B&W photographs) "It all began with a barefoot boy in his middle teens trying to learn to ride bareback on a scrawny old buggy horse in a little Iowa town more than eighty years ago. ... From these beginnings to the Big Top spectacle we know today, here is the story of how it was done -- the early hardships, the disasters, the disappointments, and the slow climb to international success by merging other outfits with their own. A book full of drama and suspense and a real success story." .