New Wine in Old Bottles: Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus

Angela Carter described her work-in-progress, Nights at the Circus, as “a bit like psychedelic Dickens.” Set in 1899, an attempt to uncover the scam behind the wings of music hall artiste Sophie Fevvers whirls the tale from London (Part 1) through St. Petersburg and Siberia. Carter’s magpie mind and deep grasp of high- and low-brow culture meant the book refracted Dickensian themes—and her insider grasp of still-extant pockets of the London he knew—in a rich, complex, and vulgar read. Combining the sights, smells, sounds, and sayings of Cockney’s life with feminist, socialist, and postmodern theories, she created vivid characters and allegorical figures that invited readers to explore a strange, hallucinatory world and make their own meanings. The writers’ experiences, along with Great Expectations (Carter’s favourite Dickens work in her childhood), form the background for considering this neo-Victorian psychedelia.