On a cold February day in 1844, a small group of travellers disembarked their ship at the port of Liverpool in England. There was no welcoming party; no bands and banners and the visitors slipped silently away to their hotel. Amongst them was the American showman P. T. Barnum and his protégé Charles S. Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb. Both were little known in England at that time. But this would mark the beginning of a three-year long tour of the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Fêted by crowned heads, the tour would bring both Barnum and Stratton international fame and fortune.

By Royal Command charts the progress of this tour, with all its highs and lows, triumphs and disasters. Not just another book about Barnum, it celebrates this pivotal time in his life, and draws upon primary sources and contemporary news reports to give a forensic examination of the impact that he and Tom Thumb had on social attitudes towards the 'exotic'.