[CIRCUS HISTORY] “Cleopatra”, snake handler in the “Wild Australia” show : holograph letter, to her cousin. Java, August 1918.

A$225 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Manuscript in ink, 4 pages, octavo (210 x 140 mm); headed Permanent postal address: Savoy Hotel, Calcutta, India. 8-8- 18 (but actually written in Java), the letter is written by Cleopatra (real name Harriett Drescher) and addressed to her cousin Louis (Jessop) in England; it is signed at the foot Always, Cleo, xxxxx ; original folds, short tear to upper margin of first page, otherwise very good. Cleopatra was the stage name of Harriett Drescher, a celebrated snake and reptile handler in the circus world during the 1900s-1910s, who for some time just prior to the First World War was a member of the popular travelling spectacle billed as the Wild Australia show. In 1911, Wild Australia , which was organised by West Australian stockman Alfred Ernest Neave and backed by mining entrepreneur Dorham Doolette, opened for a lengthy run of performances in London, initially to coincide with the coronation of George V. The show earlier iterations of which had been directed by the controversial entrepreneur Archibald Meston was essentially a massive rodeo and entertainment spectacle that included over two dozen Australian riders, actors, and Indigenous performers. The Surrey-born Drescher sisters, Harriett and Sylvia a crack sharpshooter who performed under the stage name Bonita had spent a number of years in Australia on the vaudeville circuit. Bonita married Billy (Billie) Lee, a Ballarat-born stock-whip expert and fellow Wild West performer, in London in January 1913, in a cowboy wedd

• Binding: Hardcover

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