All the Fear of the Fair: Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow

by Edward Parnell (Editor)

Step right up to see the enchanted Ferris wheel whose magical gifts are to die for! Marvel at the man-eating menagerie and dreadful secrets of ‘Satan’s Circus’! Behold the nightmare waxworks of Mrs. Groby's Chamber of Horrors!

Carnivals and sideshows are settings closely entwined with the history of horror cinema, but in the realms of literature, there is a strain of uncanny fairground fiction with even deeper roots. Home to a sinister troupe of conjurers, puppeteers, beast tamers and crowds baying for blood beneath the Big Top, the performance spaces of these classic weird tales are borderlands where the unearthly meets the darker cravings of the human heart.

Presenting sixteen sensational short stories, hailing from Edgar Allan Poe’s 1840s through to Robert Aickman’s 1960s, Edward Parnell invites you to enjoy a cavalcade of uneasy thrills courtesy of Gerald Kersh, Ray Bradbury, Margery Lawrence and many more.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2025

About the author

Edward Parnell is the author of the narrative non-fiction 'Ghostland' (William Collins), shortlisted for the 2020 PEN Ackerley Prize for memoir. He lives near Norwich in the UK and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He has been the recipient of an Escalator Award from the National Centre for Writing and a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship. 'The Listeners' (2014) was his first novel, and was the winner of the Rethink New Novels Prize.

Reviews

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Midway Lineup

"Hop-Frog" (1850) by Edgar Allan Poe
A royal court dwarf with the heart of King Kong and the mind of an orphaned Borgia concocts a spectacular act of violence costumed as a joke.

"Satan's Circus" (1931) by Lady Eleanor Smith
The Brandt circus spreads its maleficent shadow over Europe. A deserter from the French Foreign Legion learns how poorly he chose a hiding place with the Brandt's.

"Circus Child" (1959) by Margery Lawrence
A young woman finds an ersatz family that can liberate her from maternal suicide, trafficking, abuse, and infanticide.

"A High Dive" (1961) by L. P. Hartley
Funny haha, but not funny oh-no.

"Spurs" (1923) by Tod Robbins
Freaks and bourgeois right. The brutal enforcement of the sideshow code against the intrusion of the wealthy "normal."

"Waxworks" (1922) by W. L. George
Lionel Atwill, Vincent Price, Paris Hilton. But first, George's young couple in search of shelter from the rain. The uncanny power of the wax museum is its imperfect commemoration of the dead.

"The Harlem Horror" (1932) by Charles Birkin
Was that my missing daughter? A devastating reveal of mutilation and loss.

"Freak Show" (1957) by Robert Silverberg
Running away to join the circus, with a galactic twist.

"The Conjurer" (1912) by Richard Middleton
A stage magician performs a vanishing trick that works too well, leaving only a wistful sadness in the empty theater.

"The Vanishing Trick" (1931) by Charles Davy
An unhappily married man seeks a permanent exit via a pier-end magic show. A teleporting nightmare, truly.

"The Little Town" (1918) by J. D. Beresford
A traveler discovers a mysterious town where the entertainment is visions of wonder and strangeness.

"The Extraordinarily Horrible Dummy" (1939) by Gerald Kersh
A ventriloquist is dominated by a dummy. But a rooming house neighbor who must hear them practice all night, only to learn which is which.

"The Haunted Roundabout" (1929) by 'Simplex'
A ride that whirls the rider through supernatural thrills and vengeful justice.
Cf. "The Companion" by Ramsey Campbell

"The Black Ferris" (1948) by Ray Bradbury
The sinister mechanics of a carnival ride that can exonerate Mr. Cougar of any crime.

"The Swords" (1969) by Robert Aickman
Surreal, psychosexual encounters where performance and violation merge.

[Magdalena Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely one of the strongest collections in the British Library Tales of the Weird series! There wasn’t a single story that made me go meh or that made me want to skip it entirely. These are well written, nostalgic, fun and properly creepy and disturbing too. It’s a very strong selection plus both the general intro and short intros to each story/authors are brilliantly written by the editor, Edward Parnell, and you can feel his passion for this project.

My favourite stories were:
‘Hop-Frog’ by Edgar Allan Poe - just a brilliant opening story!
‘A High Dive’ - L.P. Hartley - quick, surprising and funny read which is a nice contrast to some other uncanny and cruel stories in this book
‘Spurs’ by Tod Robbins - grim and cruel, but so good. Adapted into the infamous movie Freaks!
‘The Harlem Horror’ by Charles Birkin - so dark and disturbing but again, so good and well written!
‘Freak Show’ by Robert Silverberg - just like an episode of The Twilight Zone and I loved it.
‘The Black Ferris’ by Ray Bradbury - I mean, it’s Bradbury! This one is short and sweet, has this great coming of age feel to it and the ending is brilliant.

This is really just a very good bunch of short stories put together by a great editor! Very much recommended 🎪

[p. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5☆

Some of the stories were impressively gruesome but I suspect the subject matter lends itself to it incredibly well. Quite a few snappy fast favourites in here.

Favourite entries: "Satan's Circus" by Eleanor Smith, "Circus Child" by Margery Lawrence, "Waxworks" by W. L. George, "The Harlem Horror" by Charles Birkin, "The Vanishing Trick" by Charles Davy, "The Little Town" by J. D. Beresford, "Punch and Judy" by Frederick Cowles, "The Swords" by Robert Aickman

[Chris Greensmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The carnival had come to town like an October wind, like a dark bat flying over the cold lake, bones rattling in the night, mourning, sighing, whispering up the tents in the dark rain. It stayed on for a month by the grey, restless lake of October, in the black weather and increasing storms and leaden skies."

[Leila Anani · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite of the British Library Tales of the Weird anthologies to date - The subject matter is very close to my heart anyway, part of my degree exploring the relationship between Horror and Circuses - this one ticked lots of boxes before even looking at the stories - Its nice to note though that there's not a bad story in here and several tie in to other horror media.

For Film & TV fans we have, Tod Robbins "Spur" (the basis for Todd Browning's Freaks), Poe's excellent "Hop-Frog" (which has a nice nod in the movie of Masque of the Red Death) W. L. George's "Waxworks" which inspired a whole host of things most notably 'House of Wax', Gerald Kersh's "The extraordinarily horrible Dummy" (the inspiration for the Dummy story in 'Dead of Night' and Robert Aickman's "The Swords" which was filmed as the first episode of the TV series The Hunger.

We've also got Eleanor Smith's "Satan's Circus" which was a big influence on Hammer's 'Vampire Circus' and Charles Birkin's "The Harlem Horror" which although I've yet to see any direct linkage feels to me the inspiration for 'The Mutations' (1974) AKA: The Freakmaker

All great stories and its nice to have them gathered together in one volume. This anthology really is a must have for B-Movie horror fans.

Other particular highlights include:

Ray Bradbury's "The Black Ferris" is a personal favourite and it struck me reading it here that it was probably the inspiration for Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord - with the magic roundabout that can turn back time...

Robert Silverberg's "Freak-show" - adding a sci-fi element with an intergalactic circus was another delight.

Margery Lawrence's "Circus Child" - is a nice Homes/Watson style mystery about a girl under the thrall of an evil Svengali type hypnotist.

There's a nice variety of stories - we cover waxworks, ventriloquists dummies, hypnotists, conjurers, haunted roundabouts, freakshows... and they flow very nicely.

An excellent collection.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great and very readable collection of spooky stories involving fun fairs, circuses, Carnivals and the characters you would expect to be involved in such places. I presumed, correctly, that there would be a Ray Bradbury story (a very important story it is too), Also tales from authors I knew of such as Robert Silverberg, Edgar Allan Poe, Margery Lawrence, but also a lot that I didnt know. Liked every single story, loved a lot of them.

[Michael John Paul McManus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great creepy stories about fairgrounds, magicians, and sideshows. British Library of the Weird have produced another great collection of weird short stories edited by Edward Parnell. Excellent indeed. 10/10.

[Ben Crozier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best British library tales of the weird by multiple authors I have read. Some many different styles of story. Despite the content I found Circus Child by Margery Lawrence really sweet while some like the Harlem Horror where the exact opposite.

[Samuel (Still Reading Sam) M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
not the best not the worst. very middle of the road on balance