The Circus Kings: Our Ringling Family Story by NORTH, John Ringling, and HATCH, Alden - 1960

New York: Doubleday & Company, 1960. Hardcover. Illustrations by Allene Gaty Hatch. 8vo. Light green cloth spine and strawberry pink paper over boards with blue lettering and gilt decorations, pictorial dust jacket. 383pp. Line drawings, pictorial/text endpapers. Near fine/very good. Faint jacket edgewear; half-title and facing page as well as copyright and facing copyright page age toned from long-ago newsprint contact. Tight, handsome later printing of this chronicle by the long-time president and director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (1903-85) -- with choice autograph addition: Tipped to half-title page is a First Day Cover for the 5-cent "Circus" stamp, 6½" X 3½", cancelled in Delavan, Wisconsin on 2 May 1966 and with "First Day of Issue" stamped. Fine. Single stamp at upper right, and at lower left the clown stamp's German-American artist, Edward Klauck (1900-80), signs boldly in black ballpoint.