Nights at the Circus
Published on 4. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-5299-5560-6 (ISBN)
Description
Welcome to the circus - strange, dirty and shameless, this is the greatest show on Earth.
Sophie Fevvers is a seductress, a braggart and an ariel performer in Colonel Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan.
Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
READER LOVE - JOIN THE CIRCUS:
'My God. What a breathtaking journey.'
'It plays itself out like a fabulous carnival.'
'Now I'm done, and I don't know what to do with myself'
'[B]eautifully written and surprisingly life-affirming, while also being strange, sly, and sexed-up'
'Angela Carter's world is, as always, a dirty, earthy, erotic, yet soaringly ethereal place to spend one's time'
The Vintage Classics Weird Girls series: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in.
Sophie Fevvers is a seductress, a braggart and an ariel performer in Colonel Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan.
Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
READER LOVE - JOIN THE CIRCUS:
'My God. What a breathtaking journey.'
'It plays itself out like a fabulous carnival.'
'Now I'm done, and I don't know what to do with myself'
'[B]eautifully written and surprisingly life-affirming, while also being strange, sly, and sexed-up'
'Angela Carter's world is, as always, a dirty, earthy, erotic, yet soaringly ethereal place to spend one's time'
The Vintage Classics Weird Girls series: Dive into the depraved, delectable depths of weird fiction with nine books by nine pioneering female authors. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in.
Reviews / Votes
Nights at the Circus is a glorious enchantment. But an enchantment which is rooted in an earthy, rich and powerful language...It is a spell-binding achievement-Literary ReviewA glorious piece of work, a set-piece studded with set-pieces. The narrative has a splendid ripe momentum, and each descriptive touch contributes a pang of vividness. By doing possible things impossibly well, the book achieves a major enchantment-Times Literary Supplement
A mistress-piece of sustained and weirdly wonderful Gothic that's both intensely amusing and also provocatively serious. This is a big, superlatively imagined novel-Observer
A remarkable book by any standards-Guardian
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
260 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-5560-6 (9781529955606)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Angela Carter
Nights at the Circus
E-Book
10/2012
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Angela Carter was born in 1940. She lived in Japan, the United States and Australia. Her first novel, Shadow Dance, was published in 1965. Her next book, The Magic Toyshop, won the John Llewllyn Rhys Prize and the next, Several Perceptions, the Somerset Maugham Award. She died in February 1992.