Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum; Or, Magazine of Remarkable Characters. (1820)
Mademoiselle Lefort, intersexed, was part of Mr. Kirby’s exhibition of extraordinary people. Lefort was from France, and although displayed above in a gown preferred to wear men’s clothing, but discovered they could cash in in a big way allowing themselves to be objectified and displayed in public spectacle (Carroll, 2015).
The volumes produced after an 1818 series of Kirkby’s exhibitions include portraits of subjects and fascinating tales of unbelievable events, people, animals or objects:
Exhibitions of people with biological rarities or capable of amazing feats, known for decades as a “freak show”, were introduced in the 16th century but became a popular commercial venture in the 19th century. Kirkby was one example of these types of exhibitions that would exploit rare conditions by objectifying the subjects.
Kirby produced four volumes of his portraits and stories which can be found digitally archived with a quick search. These were developed after Grainger had produced several similar volumes in 1808. I found an excellent and thorough blog post that reviews all the “Wonderful” publications that proliferated in the late Georgian era: Wonderful, terrific and eccentric magazines | A Fortean in the Archives (wordpress.com)
Carroll, V. (2015). Science and Eccentricity: Collecting, Writing and Performing Science for Early Nineteenth-Century Audiences. (n.p.): Taylor & Francis.
KARPENKO, L. (2010). “Printed Words That Gave…Pain”: Embodied Response and Deformito-Mania in “The Old Curiosity Shop”. Nineteenth Century Studies, 24, 17-33. Retrieved August 14, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/45197018
