At the turn of the twentieth century, Sophie Fevvers is the toast of Europe: six feet two, extravagantly blonde, spectacularly theatrical, and apparently equipped with a pair of fully functional wings.

BUT, the question is, is she fact, fraud, or something stranger? American journalist Jack Walser sets out to investigate and is promptly pulled into her orbit, following Fevvers and Colonel Kearney’s circus from London to St Petersburg and across Siberia. First published in 1984, Nights at the Circus is carnivalesque, feminist, bawdy, Gothic and gleefully hostile to the idea that reality should behave itself. The circus becomes a machine for scrambling categories — human and animal, masculine and feminine, spectacle and authenticity, freedom and captivity. Fevvers herself is both performer and theorist of performance, continually forcing the question of whether identity is something possessed, invented, sold, or simply repeated convincingly enough.

Beneath the exuberance, Carter is interested in power: who gets looked at, who gets believed, and what happens when the object of spectacle learns to control the terms of the gaze. This Vintage edition includes an introduction by Sarah Waters.

Edition/Condition: Vintage, London, 2006. Paperback. Later printing of the Vintage edition, with introduction by Sarah Waters. Light shelf wear and minor handling marks to covers; a little edge wear. Internally clean and unmarked; binding firm. Very good condition.