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A Descriptive and Bibliographic Catalog of the Circus & Related Arts Collection at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois by Robert Sokan, and: Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach by Paul Bouissac, and: My Wild Life by Jimmy Chipperfield, and: Circus: A World History by Rupert Croft-Cooke, Peter Cotes, and: On with the Show: The First Century of Show Business in America by Robert C. Toll, and: Annals of the American Circus, 1793–1829 by Stuart Thayer (review)
- Performing Arts Journal
- The MIT Press
- Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 1977 (PAJ 5)
- pp. 91-98
- Review
- Additional Information
Books in Review A Descriptive and Bibliographic Catalog of the Circus & Related Arts Collection at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois. Written and compiled by Robert Sokan. Scarlet Ibis Press, 173 pp., $30.00 (cloth). Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach. Paul Bouissac. Indiana University Press, 206 pp., $15.00 (cloth) My Wild Life. Jimmy Chipperfield. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 219 pp., $8.95 (cloth). Circus: A World History. Rupert Croft-Cooke and Peter Cotes. Macmillan, 192 pp., $14.95 (cloth). On with the Show: The First Century of Show Business in America. Robert C. Toll. Oxford University Press, 361 pp., $19.95 (cloth). Annals of the American Circus, 1793-1829. Stuart Thayer. By the author at 276 Sumac Lane, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, 241 pp., $20.00 (paperback). A. H. Saxon Each year brings forth an abundant harvest of books on the circus, and as this subject- along with popular entertainments in general- is receiving increasing attention, it seems only reasonable that such works should now be regarded with a more critical eye. The following is a sampling of the more notable books published over the past several months and is accompanied by observations on a few other studies which should prove useful to readers and researchers. Since the appearance in 1958 of the first volume of R. Toole Stott's authoritative Circus and Allied Arts: A World Bibliography, the circus can hardly be said to lack its bibliographer. To date Stott's work runs 91 to no less than four quarto volumes- all of which, incidentally, are still in print-with a fifth volume, concentrating on holdings in American collections, currently in progress. In addition to setting out with the modest objective of cataloguing every book written on or relating to the circus, the compiler has included generous sections on articles found in selected periodicals and newspapers, literary and art works having the circus for their subjects, freaks, toy theatre prints, and- most difficult of all for any circus bibliographer to catalogue- the vast and far-flung collections of ephemera relating to this diffuse subject. With Stotts herculean project firmly established, a number of other scholars have turned their attention to the more restricted, but no less useful, labors of cataloguing circus holdings in individual libraries. In 1968, for example, the University of Amsterdam published the first volume of what is to be a complete catalogue of the K.D. Hartmans Circus Collection (Catalogus van de Circus-Biblioteek Nagelaten door K.D. Hartmans), one of the largest in Europe, which came to the school in 1963 following the death of its noted owner. The compiler, Marja Keyser, is presently at work on a second volume which will encompass the prints, posters, and other ephemera in the same collection; and she has also recently published a handsome, well illustrated history of the Amsterdam fair, Komt dat Zien! De Amsterdamse Kermis in de negentiende eeuw, where many famous circuses and popular entertainers of the nineteenth century regularly appeared. Among other excellent catalogues of recent vintage is that by Tristan Remy, the foremost authority on clowns, and Nicole Wild, Le Cirque: Iconographie in the series Catalogues de la Bibliotheque de I'Opera. This provides a descriptive list of the extensive collection of circus prints at the Bibliotheque de 'Opera. To these earlier catalogues may now be added A Descriptive and Bibliographic Catalog of the Circus & Related Arts Collection at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, compiled by Robert Sokan, special collections librarian at Illinois State. This is the same institution which, in 1970, purchased at Sotheby's the great collection of circus books formerly the possession of Jo van Doveren, and which previously had assembled an outstanding international collection of books and ephemera based largely on the extensive circusiana collections of Walter Scholl and Sverre 0. Braathen. Acquisitions continue to be made, and today the Illinois State collection, consisting of approximately 5,000 books and 100,000 ephemeral items, is one of the largest in the United States. The present catalogue is devoted to the first of these categories and, as its title indicates, is not restricted solely to the circus. Cabaret and music hall, puppets, equitation, natural history, conjuring, freaks, cowboys...