Magnificent Entertainments: Fancy Dress Balls of Canada’s Governors General, 1876-1898 by Cynthia Cooper
4to. pp. 183. profusely illustrated in b/w. bibliography. hardcover. dw. (near fine - light shelf-wear to extremities). [Fredericton]: Goose Lane Editions & Canadian Museum of Civilization, [1997].
ISBN 10: 086492187X / ISBN 13: 9780864921871
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The awestruck press thrilled all of Canada with reports of the Earl of Dufferin s 1876 fancy dress ball at Rideau Hall. Twenty years later, the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen not only topped Dufferin s extravaganza and catered to a new taste: at their Historical Fancy Dress Ball, guests promenaded as important characters from Canadian history. The next year, in Toronto, their Victorian Era Ball feted Queen Victoria s diamond jubilee by celebrating in costume the progress of her reign and the technological wonders of the century to come. In 1898, the Aberdeens induced Montreal s French and English high society to act out the ideal of national unity. Cynthia Cooper tells the stories of these four vice-regal balls, the costumes, and the optimistic nation-builders who disguised frivolity as historical research and chose costumes that allowed sexual display scandalous in any other setting. The reporters on the fringes of each event form a gushing Greek chorus, and photos by Notman and Topley show la crème de la crème of young Canada in all its finery.