Cassie McCullough

Oh, absolutely.

And in fact, that was actually my inspiration for Circus of Wonders.

You know, I'd written a novel called The Doll Factory before.

That had been well received.

And so it was, yeah, I spent a year really kind of trying to scrabble around for a second idea, you know, thinking like,

What is enough to sustain my interest and the interest of readers?

And what do I want to write about?

And then I came across this small book of Victorian photography.

In it, there was this carte de visite just reproduced with the name smudged beneath it.

So it's completely lost to time.

And underneath it just said, unidentified bearded woman, age 23.

Often I find that it's the fragment which excites me, you know, just this little snippet of this greater history.

And I just became totally fascinated by her.

She really lodged in my head and I just wanted to know what her life was like, how it would have felt, how she came to be photographed.

And that led me to lots of research into the world that I explore in the book.

Well, I mean, I hope it's not arrogant to say, but certainly Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter was a huge influence.

And, you know, one of my favourite books.

I still remember reading it for the first time when I must have been about 15 years old.

And I'd convinced myself that reading was boring and books were boring.

And, you know, which said a lot about, you know,