Read about it in my chapter ‘“Attractive Novelties”: Spectacular Innovation and the Making of a New Kind of Audience within Colonial Modernity’, in the newly published book, edited by Anna-Sophie Jürgens and Mirjam Hildbrand, Circus and the Avant-Gardes: History, Imaginary, Innovation. I also discuss waxworks and spectral illusions. The whole book’s good. You can rent it from Routledge at a mere $35.50.
