British Circus Life, by Lady Eleanor Smith and John Hinde

[rachelmanija]

Published in 1945, this is a fascinating and detailed look at the day to day life of the traveling British circus, focusing on one specific traveling circus.

It had a ton of useful details if you’re looking to write about an old-school circus, or just interested in them, and also had significantly less racial stereotyping than the book on a Mexican circus that was written in the 1990s, which is not to say that it had none. There are lots of color photos.

The first part, written by Smith, is about the circus when it’s doing its summer cycle of performances. The second part (noticeably less well-written and with a lot more animal death) is written by Hinde and is about what they do on their off-season, in which they perform indoors for pantomimes and prepare for the summer touring.

Smith emphasizes the grueling hard work of the touring life, often pointing out that British weather is absolutely miserable and they’re not only getting up and working at 4:00 AM, they’re often doing so in sleet or rain. And also, if it rains when a performance is scheduled, people won’t show and then they lose their money. But she also notes that they’re doing it by choice and have a lot of fun in between the rain and the feuds and the bad food. (Smith does not identify it as bad food, probably because due to rationing she wasn’t eating well either. I, however, was aghast at how the staple diet appeared to be tea, bread, chips, “sauce,” and Spam.)

Apparently Lady Eleanor Smith was one of the Bright Young Things, was a circus publicist and wrote multiple books on them including a collection of ghost stories called Satan's Circus (Fantasy and Horror Classics), and died young of causes I was unable to ascertain right around the time this book was published.

Thank you very much to the mystery benefactor who sent me this!

British Circus Life

Comments

[sovay]

It had a ton of useful details if you’re looking to write about an old-school circus, or just interested in them

*yoinks, at least the half by Smith*

In terms of old-time British circuses, I'm not saying it's a masterpiece of wartime cinema or anything, but I really enjoyed The Dark Tower (1943), whose hypnotism plot is more fun than plausible but whose day-to-day circus life is actually pretty great.

[edit] Hah! My linked source for the circus shown in the film was the book you just finished reading!

[sholio]

Oooh, this sounds really good!

[scioscribe]

Oh, that sounds really awesome. I love nitty-gritty professional details, especially of mostly-inaccessible professions like this.

[asakiyume]

Fascinating! One day I'd like to take a look at that circus book (and Satan's Circus sounds like a fun collection).

[lilacsigil]

That sounds awesome! I've read a lot of British children's books that involve the circus (from Enid Blyton onwards) but I've never seen a factual treatment of that era of circuses.

[telophase]

FYI, the library where I work contains an archive of a Mexican circus run by one family, and has an (archived) online exhibit of photographs and their story done by a student a decade or so back (who did not actually take ANY of my suggestions to make it easier to read and navigate, alas).