The Wonders

Lifting the Curtain on the Freak Show, the Circus and the Victorian Age

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up…

On 23 March, 1844, General Tom Thumb, at 25 inches tall, entered the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace and bowed to Queen Victoria. On both sides of the Atlantic, this event marked a tipping point in the nineteenth century: the age of the ‘Freak’ was born.

Bewitching all levels of society, the ‘Freak Show’ was a world of astonishing spectacle and entertainment. But the real stories and human dramas of the performing men, women and children have been marginalised in the histories of the very people who exploited them.

In The Wonders, Dr John Woolf brings to life the history of the Freak show, and how it gave way to some of the great transformations of the age: the birth of showbusiness, celebrity, and 'alternative facts'. The book explores the virtues of the ‘Freak’ circuit, as well as the ongoing effects of power, fame, exploitation, and our fascination with otherness.

Sometimes tragic, sometimes triumphant, and always extraordinary, The Wonders is the true story of the performers whose talents and disabilities helped define an era.

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