Nights at the Circus

Angela Carter · 1940–1992 · England

Why it matters

Fevvers, a Cockney aerialiste who may or may not have real wings, careens from London to St Petersburg to Siberia. Carter's exuberant magical-realist romp about spectacle, freedom, and the New Woman taking flight.

At a glance

Baroque, digressive, allusion-stuffed sentences sustained across an episodic picaresque.