"The Victorian freak show was at once mainstream and subversive. Spectacles of strange, exotic, and titillating bodies drew large middle-class audiences in Engl

The untold story of the Victorian freak show and circus, and the remarkable cast of characters who performed in them.

Neo-Victorian Freakery explores the way in which contemporary fiction, film, and television has revisited the lives of nineteenth-century freak show performers.

In 1847, during the great age of the freak show, the British periodical Punch bemoaned the public's "prevailing taste for deformity." This vividly detailed work

A thorough survey of the origins and development of the major distinct American commercial entertainments that emerged between over the course of the 19th centu