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, or postfeminism. As in her previous works, Angela 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.
Read more about Nights At The Circus: Setting, Characters, Themes, Plot Structure, Form, and Perspective, Historical Context, Literary Significance and Reception, Awards and Nominations
Famous quotes containing the words nights and/or circus:
“I knew that I had seen, had seen at last
That girl my unremembering nights hold fast
Or else my dreams that fly
If I should rub an eye,
And yet in flying fling into my meat
A crazy juice that makes the pulses beat....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn’t do if your life depended on it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)