The best books about sideshow performers who make the impossible possible

This is the story of Michael Costello, known as the Amazing Blondini. But for someone who could swallow swords, pull cars with his teeth and have one drive over his head, eat fire and razor blades, and have men stand on him while he lay on a bed of nails, “amazing” hardly did him justice.

I love how this biography takes us through his incredibly unusual life journey that began when he was born into a circus family on a fairground in Dublin in 1922 and eventually began learning stunts through the mentorship of a variety of colorful characters. As he grew more skilled, he grew more daring—all for the sake of entertaining audiences and shocking them in entirely new ways.

This is one of the first books about sideshow performers that I (Marc) bought more than 25 years ago. It’s filled with remarkable stories and images of many of the most famous performers of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Among them is the tale of Myrtle Corbin, the four-legged woman. After reading about Corbin, I began telling friends at a party her story, and a woman listening in said she knew about her. I couldn’t believe it. That woman later became my wife. 

Those who made an impression on Houdini were clearly doing something extraordinary. In 1920’s Miracle Mongers, Houdini shares the stories of unique performers from history along with those he encountered personally, like Evatima Tardo, the woman whose act involved getting bitten by poisonous snakes and living to do it over and over again.

He also describes acts involving fire breathing, stone eating, sword swallowing, and more. Like the acts themselves, his takes on them are fascinating. 

Drimmer’s 1973 book was another of my (Marc) first sideshow books. It’s packed with amazing stories about truly amazing people, and that’s what I love reading about—all the incredible things people could do despite their various anomalies.

This book may have been the first place I read about legless acrobat Eli Bowen and armless wonder Charles Tripp organizing a tandem bicycle ride—one steering, the other peddling. True teamwork. Dan and I later re-created the photo with a modern-day armless man and a legless man.  

Published in 2002, I love this book for its personal interviews with performers and showmen from the latter half of the 20th century. It’s a chance to not just read about sideshow history, but to hear it straight from the mouths of such people like Jeanie Tomaini the Half Girl, Melvin Burkhart the Anatomical Wonder, and impresarios Ward Hall and Bobby Reynolds.

Plus, it’s filled with plenty of extraordinary photos.