La Merveilleuse Histoire du Cirque. (3 volumes).

[Paris]: Prisma, 1947. Complete in three volumes. First editions limited to 500 copies, these number 375. Quartos, 271; 335; [42] pages copiously illustrated throughout in b/w & occasionally color (including color frontispiece portraits of Albert and Francois Fratellini in volume 3). Publisher's original green cloth, lettered in gilt on the spines & upper covers which are also decorated with a circus illustration within gilt blocking, in photo-illustrated dust jackets. Text in French.

Boards lightly scuffed, diagonal loss at the bottom corner of the upper cover of volume 2 (about one inch by half an inch), amateurishly repaired with cello-tape which also affects the lower corner of the text block (diminishing through p. 147, text unaffected), modest foxing & toning mostly at endpapers & pastedowns, previous owner's small address label on the front pastedown of each volume; jackets modestly rubbed, soiled, & faded (particularly volume 2), with some short tears & losses, & a few old tape repairs on the versos, a useful & generally attractive set.

Splendidly illustrated, mostly from photographs, the first two volumes were also issued separately in an edition of 2000, numbered 500-2500 The third volume provides a history of the Fratellini brothers whose engagement at the Circus Medrano in Paris, France after World War I sparked a strong resurgence of interest in the Big Top. The author, a journalist, was also a lion tamer, zoo director, & founder in 1949 of the Cirque Club.