[CIRCUS HISTORY] Wild Australian Children

A$175 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Buffalo ; New York : Warren Johnson Co., [circa 1864]. Promotional card with colour lithograph design, after a photograph by Charles D. Fredricks, carte de visite format (105 x 62 mm), printed caption and publisher s imprint in lower margin, verso blank; closely trimmed at left and right edges, and with a small amount of mild foxing and faint horizontal crease near the bottom edge (only discernible on verso ). A portrait of two microencephalic sideshow freaks , whose physical appearance led them to be referred to at the time by promoters and commentators as pinheads . The children were billed as Hoomio and Iola, who had purportedly been found in the interior of Australia. An anonymous contemporary promotional pamphlet, which gives a fictitious account of their background, is recorded in several Australian collections ( The Adventures of the three Australian travellers : Capt. J. Reid and his companions Cooper and Parker, in search of the marvelous : giving a graphic account of the discovery, capture and semi-civilization of the wild Australian children, Hoomio and Iola : together with a sketch of the savage tribes inhabiting the interior of Australia : with a brief account of the customs, manners, heathen beliefs, superstitions, traditions and origin of those barbarous and curious islanders. New York : S. Booth, 1864) . Hoomio and Iola are known to have been exhibited by promoters from around 1864 to at least 1869. They represented an opportunity for promoters to exploit the

• Binding: Hardcover

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