Nights at the Circus
First edition
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| Author | Angela Carter |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Roxanna Bikadoroff |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Chatto & Windus |
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Publication date
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4 March 1984 |
| Pages | 295 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 12558119 |
| 823/.914 19 | |
| LC Class | PR6053.A73 N5 1986 |
Nights at the Circus is a novel by Angela Carter, first published in 1984 and that year's winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. The novel focuses on the life and exploits of Sophie Fevvers, a woman who is – or so she would have people believe – a Cockney virgin, hatched from an egg laid by unknown parents and ready to develop fully fledged wings. At the time of the story, she has become a celebrated aerialiste, and she captivates the young journalist Jack Walser, who runs away with the circus and falls into a world that his journalistic exploits had not prepared him to encounter.
Nights at the Circus incorporates multiple categories of fiction, including postmodernism, magical realism, and postfeminism. As in her previous works, Carter plays with many literary aspects and dissects the traditional fairy tale structure.
In 2006, the novel was adapted for the stage by Tom Morris and Emma Rice for Kneehigh Theatre Company. It was performed at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, Bristol Old Vic, Bristol and then toured.
Nights at the Circus begins with American journalist Jack Walser interviewing Sophie Fevvers in her London dressing room following a performance for the circus which employs her. Fevvers claims to have been left as a baby in a basket on the doorstep of a brothel. Until she reached puberty she appeared to be an ordinary child, with the exception of a raised lump on each shoulder; as she begins menstruating, however, she also sprouted complete wings. As a child, she posed as a living statue of Cupid in the reception room of the brothel, but as an adolescent, she is now transformed into the image of the "Winged Victory" holding a sword belonging to Ma Nelson, the madam of the brothel. This stage of Fevvers' life comes to an abrupt end when Ma Nelson slips in the street and falls into the path of a carriage. The house and its contents are inherited by her pious brother who plans to convert it to a house for fallen women, but Ma Nelson's employees burn the place down and go their separate ways.
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