Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 36

"The Boy Clown; or, The Queen of the Arena" (Chapter I-II)

This Beadle's Half-Dime Library serial, copyrighted 1878, opens in the village of Frenchville, where Copenhagen's Mammoth Circus arrives amid excitement. Fourteen-year-old Henry Needhurst, circus-born (performing as Henri De La Forest), is a renowned trapeze performer. A disgruntled worker named Murker, angry at being reported for drunkenness, sabotages Henry's apparatus by nearly severing a supporting rope. During the evening performance, the rope snaps mid-act, hurling Henry from the trapeze to the ground. The second chapter shifts focus: Murker, fleeing, finds refuge in a cabin where a beautiful fourteen-year-old girl named Jessie lives with her deaf grandmother. Recognizing Jessie's exceptional singing voice, Murker immediately plots to exploit her for profit and personal gain, exploiting the grandmother's financial desperation.