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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Other public performances & spectacles > Circus
Beneath the Big Top is a social history of the circus, from its
ancient roots to the rise of the 'modern' tented travelling shows.
A performer and founder of a circus group, Steve Ward draws on
eye-witness accounts and contemporary interviews to explore the
triumphs and disasters of the circus world. He reveals the stories
beneath the big top during the golden age of the circus and the
lives of circus folk, which were equally colourful outside the
ring: * Pablo Fanque, Britain's first black circus proprietor * The
Chipperfield dynasty, who started out in 1684 on the frozen Thames
* Katie Sandwina, world's strongest woman and part-time
crime-fighter * The Sylvain brothers, who fell in love with the
same woman in the ring
'A book of instructions to those who will dare one day the
impossible. I bow my head in reverence' Werner Herzog 'Petit is an
artist whose theatre is the sky' Robin Williams 'Fascinating. You
will learn about the man, his work, his passion, his tenacity and
lucidity' Marcel Marceau 'Petit outlines a whole approach to life.
The lessons are simple, universal. Be committed. Feel alive. Give
everything' Independent In cities you travel to, always remember to
visit the highest monument. Remain at the top for many hours,
looking into the void. In this poetic handbook, written when he was
just twenty-three, the world-famous high-wire artist Philippe Petit
offers a window into the world of his craft. Petit masterfully
explains how preparation and self-control contributed to such feats
as walking between the towers of Notre Dame and the World Trade
Center. Addressing such topics as the rigging of the wire, the
walker's first steps, his salute and exercises, and the work of
other renowned high-wire artists, Petit offers us a book about the
ecstasy of conquering our fears and reaching for the stars.
Translated and introduced by Paul Auster A W&N Essential
I believe hugely in advertising and blowing my own trumpet,
beating the gongs, drums, to attract attention to a "show, "
Phineas Taylor Barnum wrote to a publisher in 1860. "I don't
believe in 'duping the public, ' but I believe in first
"attracting" and then pleasing them."
The name P.T. Barnum is virtually synonymous with the fine art
of self-advertisement and the apocryphal statement, "There's a
sucker born every minute." Nearly a century after his death, Barnum
remains one of America's most celebrated figures.
In the "Selected Letters of P.T. Barnum, " A.H. Saxon brings
together more than 300 letters written by the self-styled "Prince
of Humbugs." Here we see him, opinionated and exuberant, with only
the rarest flashes of introspection and self-doubt, haggling with
business partners, blustering over politics, and attempting to get
such friends as Mark Twain to endorse his latest schemes.
Always the king of showmen, Barnum considered himself a museum
man first and was forever on the lookout for "curiosities," whether
animate or inanimate. His early career included such outright
frauds as Joice Heth, the "161-year-old nurse of George
Washington," and the Fejee Mermaid-the desiccated head and torso of
a monkey sewn to the body of a fish. Although in later years he
projected a more solid, respectable image-managing the
irreproachable "legitimate" attraction Jenny Lind, becoming a
leading light in the temperance crusade, founding the Barnum &
Bailey Circus-much of his daily existence continued to be
unabashedly devoted to manipulating public opinion so as to acquire
for himself and his enterprises what he delightedly termed
"notoriety."
His famous autobiography, "The Life of P.T. Barnum, " which he
regularly augmented during the last quarter century of his life,
was itself a masterpiece of self-promotion. "Will you have the
kindness to announce that I am writing my life & that
fifty-seven different publishers have applied for the chance of
publishing it," he wrote to a newspaper editor, adding, "Such is
the fact-and if it wasn't, why still it ain't a bad
announcement."
The "Selected Letters of P.T. Barnum" captures the magic of this
consummate showman's life, truly his own "greatest show on
earth."
This book is one of the most valuable contributions to American
cultural studies of the nineteenth century in recent years. It
explores analytically and critically American cultural life, the
developing urbanization between 1840 and the 1880s, and some major
patterns within that movement, through the prism of the career and
doings of P.T. Barnum.
An English translation of Genet's symbolic drama which was first
performed in Paris in 1959.
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