MEMOIRS OF JOSEPH GRIMALDI

In his day, Grimaldi was acclaimed the best clown of the British pantomime. Editor Richard Findlater on the memoirs: ""Although the book, as we have it, is a disappointing and incomplete record, it is all the same, almost the only source of information about the life of a great artist: it includes many revealing minor sidelights upon the social and cultural background of the Regency: and--although commonly cold-shouldered by Dickensians, it claims its own small, secure niche in the development of a great writer."" Dickens altered and revised Grimaldi's memoirs, published them first in 1838. It has long been out of print.