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In The Circus and Victorian Society, Brenda Assael notes the Victorian circus was enhanced by developing travel technologies; the railways enabled performers to journey to remote areas of the country. Assael focuses on the particular types of circus performers and their relationship with the stage, while this paper will focus on the journeys these entertainers undertake. Performers often still travelled locally from town to town on foot/horse/carriage, and to advertise their arrival, they would give a parade: an extravagant tour which consisted of exhibiting the best and most colourful of their vehicles, costumes and performers. The V&A Museum has documented photographs depicting these parades and this paper will draw on them to illustrate the large, ornate vehicles and costumes. This paper will also explore how performers used their nomadic existence to construct their identities, how the different modes of circus transport denoted class status and how the street was transformed into a stage.

One author to depict these circus parades in fiction was Mary Braddon in her short story ‘One Fatal Moment’ (1889). In the tale, the female circus performer uses her ability to travel across country to (re)construct her identity when arriving in every town. Thus, travelling allows her to cross class boundaries, to hide from her family and the police, and to deconstruct herself as a ‘performer’. Braddon’s own career as an actress in the 1850s had seen her travel from London, to Hull and Scotland and she used her circus narrative to evaluate the complexities of the profession. By depicting a ‘third rate’ touring circus for her Mistletoe Bough readership, Braddon was also able to bring this lower-class travel narrative into the homes of the middle-class Victorian reader, and her ownership of the magazine meant that she could transmit her travel narratives across the country using the popular press. [author summary]