Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.

Welcome to the sublime circus of Mark Mayer's Michener-Copernicus-winning debut, Aerialists, a fiercely inventive collection of nine stories in which classic carnival characters become ordinary misfits seeking grandeur in a lonely world. Under the luminous tent of Mayer's prose, we see P.T. Barnum's caravan remade: A young misogynist finds a confidante in a cable-TV strongwoman. A realtor for the one percent invokes his inner murder clown. A skin-and-bones...

Oliver the elephant looks elsewhere for employment after learning that the circus already has enough elephants.

Young Morris McGurk imagines building a Circus McGurkus with jugglers, clowns, acrobats and more behind Sneelock's Store.

Pepito, son of the Spanish Ambassador, and Madeline, rescued by Gypsies during a storm, travel and perform with their wandering friends until they again find Miss Clavel.

Mice carefully dress for an evening out, journey across Paris in a hot air balloon, and finally arrive at a secret place to see the circus.

The stork delivers a baby elephant to Mrs. Jumbo, who happens to be a veteran of the circus, but the newborn is soon ridiculed because of his truly gigantic ears. It is up to Dumbo's only true friend, Timothy Q. Mouse, to assist Dumbo to achieve his full potential.

Journalist Cam Harrison and his niece Elle encounter a mermaid at a traveling circus in Mississippi and decide to free her from the grasp of Locke, the circus' evil leader.

The life story of P.T. Barnum the creator of the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Phryne Fisher is bored with her perfect life when a man from her past asks for her help in investigating strange happenings at Farrell's Circus, drawing Phryne into the strange carnival underworld.