The Clown King is a microhistory of popular entertainment in the period 1840 - 1860 woven out of the career of Arthur Nelson, the Clown King.

Born around 1816, Nelson began as an actor in provincial and minor theatres before specialising as a 'talking' or Shakespearean clown. While some contemporaries wrote accounts of their lives, Nelson left no such formal record and yet, as one of the most popular clowns at the time, his career was one full of interest. Traced through playbills, advertisements and newspaper reports of the period, he moved seamlessly between...