Nights at the Circus

Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe's capitals, part swan ...or all fake? Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.

ISBN 0099388618   DEWEY edition DC20 ISBN13 9780099388616 (What's this?)   Pages 368 Publisher Vintage   Weight (grammes) 266 Imprint Vintage Classics   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 198 Publication date 03 Jan 1998   Width (mm) 129 Reissue date 06 Jul 2006   Spine width (mm) 23 Non-book description B   Academic level General DEWEY 823.914

"'Angela Carter has influenced a whole generation of fellow writers towards dream worlds of baroque splendour, fairy tale horror, and visions of the alienated wreckage of a future world. In Nights at the Circus she has invented a new, raunchy, raucous, Cockney voice for her heroine Fevvers, taking us back into a rich, turn of the 19th century world, which reeks of human and animal variety' The Times. * 'Nights at the Circus is a glorious enchantment. But an enchantment which is rooted in an earthy, rich and powerful language...It is a spell-binding achievement' Literary Review * 'A glorious piece of work, a set-piece studded with set-pieces. The narrative has a splendid ripe momentum, and each descriptive touch contributes a pang of vividness. By doing possible things impossibly well, the book achieves a major enchantment' Times Literary Supplement * 'A mistress-piece of sustained and weirdly wonderful Gothic that's both intensely amusing and also provocatively serious. This is a big, superlatively imagined novel' Observer * 'A remarkable book by any standards' Guardian"

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