William L. Slout, entertainment historian par excellence, here provides five fascinating essays on the development of the American traveling circus in the post-Civil War era: 'En Route to the Great Eastern Circus' (on the creation of this great show); 'The Great Eastern Circus of 1872' (more details about one of P. T. Barnum’s rivals); 'The Not-So-Great Trans-Atlantic Circus and Menagerie' (how a show failed suddenly in a yellow fever epidemic); 'What Goes Up...Comes Down' (how balloning became part of the circus environment); and 'The Chicken or the Egg?' (on the first development of the double-ring act pioneered by Barnum and others). These vivid essays, highlighted by numerous contemporaneous excerpts from local newspapers, help bring a long-forgotten era alive again.
