[CHILDREN’S PANORAMA.] Grand Circus Panorama.

‘Roll up, Roll Up!’

[CHILDREN’S PANORAMA.] Grand Circus Panorama. London: Dean and Son. [not before 1873.]

Oblong 8vo. Publisher’s red illustrated boards depicting a clown and two donkeys to upper board, a clown with a circus paper hoop and publisher’s advertisements for ‘Dean’s Cardboard Panorama Toy Books’ to lower; [10] chromolithographic panels depicting circus scenes, attached with a black cloth strip to rear extending to 264cm in length; a little bumping and scuffing to extremities, repairs to cloth joints between panels [2] and [3], and panels [4] and [5]; short closed tear to foot of panels [1] and [2], the former with unobtrusive adhesive repair, lightwater staining to lower edge, slight cockling to a few panels; overall a bright example, very good.

An eight-and-a-half-foot panoramic view of the circus produced by the Victorian children’s publisher Dean & Son, renowned for their innovative movable books, comprising ten scenes depicting clowns, animals, and a female dog trainer and tightrope walker.

Dean & Son were founded in London before 1800, and turned their attention in the mid-nineteenth century to the production of movable books. They are largely regarded as the first to produce a movable book with rivets in England with their publication of Red Riding Hood (c. 1857), and they produced toy and rag books. These were intended not only as sources of entertainment for children, but also of education and play.

The panorama presents a succession of circus scenes populated by familiar performing animals, the last scene including the more exotic attraction of a ‘musical elephant’, wearing bright yellow glasses and playing what appears to be a barrel organ, while a clown acts as a conductor. Although the majority of the performers are male, women appear in the roles of tightrope walker, dog-trainer, and equestrienne.

OCLC locates four copies, of which three in the US (Texas A&M, Texas Woman’s, and BYU) and only one in the UK (Bodleian).

Toole-Stott 9882.

SKU: 2120104