Cirque

1878 · 19724 — N. p. n. p. ca. 1878-1880. Some short shallow chips from one long edge; a trifle toned and soiled; in very good condition. Single leaf printed recto and verso approx. 20.25 x 7.13 inches illustrated with numerous woodcuts of human oddities. An attractive ephemeral showbill from the veteran circus promoter Giles Pullman who offers a "Grand Comic Concert Monster Museum and Feast of the Ferocious Wild Animals." The latter promises to be a "Crimson Carnival of Blood." One side of the showbill is devoted to woodcut portraits of the "Living Curiosities" to be seen without extra charge eight acts that include some of the better-known names of the period--the Madagascar Family Rudolph Lucasie and his wife and two children European albinos touted as Africans and performing in American since ca. 1860; the portrait is adapted from the well-known Currier & Ives portrait; Madame Lyons "the Wonderful Bearded Lady;" General Mite celebrated little man Francis Flynn 1864-1898; as well as "The Persian Beauty or Fan Woman" a variant on a Circassian woman; a living skeleton the fairy queen the Wild Man from the Island of Ceylon and "Nena the Egyptian Wild Girl." This seems certainly a late appearance of the Madagascar albinos; General Mite seems to have started performing around 1878 and married in 1884 and some accounts have Madame Lyons dying ca. 1880 n. p., unknown books