By the end of 1842, Risley and son had become something of a sensation. Writing about the local highlights, the editor of the Boston Gazette boldly stated:
The performances of Risley and his son have since been imitated, but never equalled. He was Magnus Apollo in comeliness, a Hercules in strength, and the son a Cupid in beauty. Of all exhibitions of physical grace in classical posturing they surpassed any we have ever seen. The throwing of the boy into the air, who turned a somerset and alighted safely on his father’s feet, invariably drew forth the loudest applause.19
This would be only one of the many superlative reviews with which the Risley family would be showered, and it is one of the first clear references to what would become known as “The Risley Act.” The expression “Risley Act” is one of the few still in use in gymnastics today that takes its name from a real person. Loosely speaking, it generally consists of one person lying on the ground on his or her back, juggling someone else using the feet. In Risley’s time, however, it referred to his juggling of his own small children. It is highly unlikely that he was the first person in the world to perform this act, as some have claimed, but he raised it to a new level of perfection and style, to the point where it was always associated with him. At least one writer claimed that Risley could toss his son twenty-five feet in the air. Even allowing for exaggeration, the sight must have been awe-inspiring, if not terrifying.
At the beginning of 1843 Risley became famous not only for his stage performances, but for a long article he wrote that was widely reprinted in American newspapers and even (six months later) as far away as Sydney, Australia. There is no solid evidence that Risley ever had much formal education, but this story is an example of how he learned to use events to promote himself, leading one American wag to comment, “it has done as much for his present fame as the graceful performances of his ‘truly astonishing Ellslerian boy.’”20 It is also around the same time that Risley appropriated the title of “Professor” for himself.
June 26, 1843, playbill from the New Strand Theatre, London. bpf tcs 63, harvard theatre collection, houghton library, harvard university.
Early in February 1843, Risley was visiting French-controlled Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, as part of a tour of the Caribbean, probably with a troupe from the Welch & Mann Circus. At ten-thirty in the morning of February 8, just when he finished breakfast at a local coffee shop, one of the worst earthquakes ever recorded in the area struck.21 In his account, in a dramatic fashion fit for an adventure novel, Risley tells how he felt the jar and saw the building he was in start to collapse. As a quick-witted, professional acrobat, he was able to jump out the window just in the nick of time, smashing through the glass and landing some ten or twelve feet below in the yard. Later, during an aftershock, he was knocked completely unconscious and awoke to find his clothes in tatters. He also miraculously found himself holding his son, John, who had been separated from him—the only two survivors in a building said to have held seventy-one at the time. The city was ruined, with collapsed buildings bursting into flames and what Risley estimated as fifteen thousand people dead. His printed account is one of the rare times that we can read his own words and hear his unique voice.
I scarcely knew what had happened, and whether it were not all a dream.—I then began to look about me, and saw various individuals, men, women, and children, of all classes and individuals, wandering about half frantic, like myself. . . . All weeping, or in the utmost conceivable agony, pitching and falling about among the ruins and dead bodies. They would go from one dead body to another, overhauling them to see if they could find the person sought for—and if not successful, pass on to another.22
Risley was able to escape, although he claims he lost six thousand dollars, including four thousand dollars in gold, which in those days was a grand sum, since general admission to a circus in America then cost around twenty-five cents. It would be just one of many times when he amassed, and lost, a fortune. To North American audiences, most of whom had never experienced anything as terrifying as a major earthquake, his story was nearly as fascinating and thrilling as one of his performances, and it only helped to further cement his reputation as an extraordinary individual.
Off to Europe
By the summer of 1843, Risley was in London, and his movements subsequently become a near blur of constant travel. On June 26, he appeared with son John at the New Strand Theatre, performing what was billed as his “Italian Scena of CLASSICAL GYMNASTICS.” A newspaper ad in The Age for the performance announced, “all attempts at description must very faintly portray the power and effect of this scena.” Then after a Burletta,
Mr. Risley and his Wonderful Son will give their second grand Italian Scena, in which feats will be performed by this incomparable Boy, aided by his father, unequalled by any other artists in the known world, incredible as it may appear to even beholders, this infant prodigy will conclude his unparalleled classical feats, by turning circles, high in air, and alight into his father’s hands!23
Thereafter, Risley and son John would perform throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, their reputation growing ever greater. In the media, John would be called, variously, the “infant prodigy,” “the wonder of the age,” and “le petit Mercure.” Audiences simply could not get enough of the family act, and what was sometimes called “Aerial Dancing.”
On September 24, The Age ran an even more detailed and laudatory review of one of their performances at the Surrey Theatre.
We, on Wednesday evening last, again witnessed the extraordinary evolutions of Mr. Risley and his son, and were far more than ever delighted. It is decidedly the most finished, the most classical performance of the kind we ever beheld. Mr. Risley himself is a finely-formed person, with every muscle beautifully developed; he is, in short, a most perfect model of a man, while his son is one of the sweetest little fellows we ever saw. It is peculiarly pleasing to see the mutual confidence displayed, and it is that very confidence which renders the exhibition so admirable, seeing that no alarm is created, no fear is inspired. Every movement is natural, graceful, and elegant, and while our wonder is excited, we are filled with admiration. They who imagine that these performances are but a series of gymnastic exercises, are deceived. The exhibition is not a mere display of physique. Intellect is perceptible in every motion, while the performance, as a whole, indicates strongly the exercise of mind. We, therefore, cannot marvel at the sensation created. It is, in reality, a beautiful display, and one which affords a striking example of what nerve, when coupled with physical power, and guided by intellect, can, without danger, achieve.24
In Edinburgh, Scotland, the locals awarded John a special medal. In Belfast, Ireland, the Dublin University Magazine took a slightly cynical view of Risley’s use of the title, “Professor,” noting that “almost everybody now-a-days dubs himself a professor, doctor, or member of something scientific, expressed by many mysterious hieroglyphics and capitals.” But it also noted that what Risley called “classical gymnasia” were indeed “applauded by the celestials,” and their booking had been extended. Risley and John played through the holiday season and closed out the year with more drawing room entertainment at London’s renowned Theatre Royal, Haymarket, performing a piece called “Peter Parley’s Gambols of Puck with the Elf King Oberon.” Their “extraordinary performance” was described as “being executed with such perfect ease and elegance, that the most fastidious lady might have them in a drawing-room without the fear of censure.”25 Posters amplified this message, describing