Gigantic Chickens with Fireworks in their Mouths

'The Era' began to devote significant space to theatrical matters in the early 1860s. In this volume a scene-painter is poisoned by his own paint; intrepid balloonists smash through stone walls on a terrifying journey across the backbone of England; Miss Lydia Howard, the Baby Actress, performs in a Shakespeare scene at the age of two; a theatre manager and a violinist indulge in an on-stage fight...and much, much more.