The extraordinary story of a young man’s plunge into the unique and wonderful world of the circus—taking readers deep into circus history and its renaissance as a contemporary art form, and behind the (tented) walls of France’s most prestigious circus school. When Duncan Wall visited his first nouveau cirque as a college student in Paris, everything about it—the monochromatic costumes, the acrobat singing Simon and Garfunkel, the juggler reciting Proust—was captivating. Soon he was waiting outside stage doors, eagerly chatting with the stars, and attending circuses two or three nights a week. So great was his enthusiasm that a year later he applied on a whim to the training program at the École Nationale des Arts du Cirque—and was, to his surprise, accepted. Sometimes scary and often funny, The Ordinary Acrobat follows the (occasionally literal) collision of one American novice and a host of gifted international students in a rigorous regimen of tumbling, trapeze, juggling, and clowning. Along the way, Wall introduces readers to all the ambition, beauty, and thrills of the circus’s long history: from hardscrabble beginnings to Gilded Age treasures, and from twentieth-century artistic and economic struggles to its brilliant reemergence in the form of contemporary circus (most prominently through Cirque du Soleil). Readers meet figures past—the father of the circus, Philip Astley; the larger-than-life P. T. Barnum—and present, as Wall seeks lessons from innovative masters including juggler Jérôme Thomas and clown André Riot-Sarcey. As Wall learns, not everyone is destined to run away with the circus—but the institution fascinates just the same. Brimming with surprises, outsized personalities, and plenty of charm, The Ordinary Acrobat delivers all the excitement and pleasure of the circus ring itself.

John Stokes's lively study is an exercise in interdisciplinary criticism inspired by the decade it observes, the decade of Wilde, Shaw, Beardsley, and Sickert. No longer dismissed as merely transitional between the Victorian and the Modern, the 1890s have now come to be recognized as unique—a period of dramatic engagement between high culture and popular forms, one medium and another, art and life. Spurning fixed boundaries, Stokes relates the controversial topics of the day—the status of the "New Journalism," the "degenerative" influence of Impressionist painting, the dubious morality of the music hall, the urgent need for prison reform, and the prevalence of suicide—to primary literary texts, such as The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Importance of Being Earnest, Jude the Obscure, and Portrait of a Lady. And in the process, he explores crucial areas of sociological and psychological interest: criminality, sexuality, madness, and "morbidity." Each of the book's six chapters opens with a look at the correspondence columns of daily newspapers and goes on, with a keen eye for the hidden link, to pursue a particular theme. Locations shift from Leicester Square and the Thames embankment to the Normandy coast and the Paris morgue and feature, along with famous names, a lesser known company of acrobats, convicts, aesthetes, "philistines," and mysterious suicides. Nearly a century later, John Stokes's unrivalled knowledge of how the arts actually functioned in the nineties makes this book a major contribution to modern cultural studies.

The Hanlons—a family of six brothers from Manchester, England—were one of the world’s premiere performing troupes in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, yet their legacy has been mostly forgotten. In The Hanlon Brothers: From Daredevil Acrobatics to Spectacle Pantomime, 1833–1931, Mark Cosdon carefully documents the careers of this talented family and enumerates their many contributions to modern popular entertainment. As young men, the Hanlons stunned audiences all over the world with their daring acrobatic feats. After a tragic accident severely injured one brother (and indirectly led to his suicide in a manner achievable only by someone with considerable acrobatic talents), they moved into the safer arena of spectacle pantomime, where they became the rage of Parisian popular theatre. They achieved fame with their uproariously funny and technically astonishing production of Le Voyage en Suisse. After settling permanently in the northeastern United States, they developed two more full-length pantomimes, Fantasma and Superba. The three shows toured for more than thirty years, a testament to their popularity and to the Hanlons’ impressive business acumen. The book’s illustrations—including sketches of their performances, studio photographs of the Hanlons, and posters for all three of their major pantomimes—are essential to the understanding of their work. The Hanlon Brothers is painstakingly researched yet accessible and engaging. Cosdon has managed to provide a thorough and engrossing account of the Hanlons’ lives and careers, which will no doubt help to reestablish their legacy in the world of popular entertainment.