The Barnum Museum

The Barnum Museum is a 1990 collection of fantasy-themed short stories by Steven Millhauser first published by Poseidon Press in 1990.
Its closing story is "Eisenheim the Illusionist", which was adapted to film in 2006 as The Illusionist.

Short stories

"A Game of Clue"
"Behind the Blue Curtain"
"The [Barnum Museum (short story)|The Barnum Museum]"
"The Sepia Postcard"
"The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad"
"Klassik Komix #1"
"Rain"
"Alice, Falling"
"The Invention of Robert Herendeen"
"Eisenheim the Illusionist"

Reception

Though finding Millhauser's stories to be "irresistible", The Washington Post's Michael Dirda can forgive those readers who may detect "an artificiality that makes them seem abstract or even lifeless."
Citing the title story as representative of the collection, New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani believes they suffer from a "static" quality:
Aram Saroyan at The New York Times remarks on Millhauser's striving to write postmodern literature:
Saroyan adds rhetorically: "Just how great a writer is Edgar Allan Poe?"