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The Supernatural?Lionel A. Weatherly & John Nevil MaskelyneIn this work, Lionel Weatherly inspects and investigates stories of mirages, prophetic dreams and the experiences of historical figures like Joan of Arc. Illusionist John Nevil Maskelyne, who exposed the fraud of a number of spiritualists including the Davenport Brothers, and who created several famous illusions which are still being performed today, examines the truth behind a number of famous Eastern magical illusions. Maskelyne also scrutinizes mediumistic fraud, questioning the credibility of figures like D. D. Home and Madame Blavatsky, in an entertaining and carefully argued investigation... | ★★★★★ $12 to wish list | |
Koschitz's Manual of Useful InformationKoschitzConcerning marks and stamps, portable and fixed devices, manipulation of cards and other matters of interest to lovers of draw. This is one of the better early books on card advantage play. We can be almost certain that Erdnase read this book.
| ★★★★★ $9 to wish list | |
Judge's Library No. 79Judge Publishing Co.Judge's Library was a satirical periodical published in the USA from 1881 to 1947. It was a rival magazine to Puck founded among others by cartoonist James Albert Wales, dime novels publisher Frank Tousey and author George H. Jessop. This issue No. 79 of Judge is all about poker. It provides a wonderful glimpse into how ubiquitous poker was in the US that such a successful periodical would dedicate an entire issue to it. Also noteworthy, particularly for Erdnase scholars, is the fact that pretty much all the funny dialogs in this issue are in various national slang and ebonic. Thus the few lines... | $8 to wish listPDF_facsimile | |
Gamblers' Tricks With Cards Exposed and ExplainedJonathan H. GreenThis is an unusual mix of contents including magic card tricks, card games and how gamblers cheat at those games, other swindles and scams, a section on dice and cheating at dice games, as well as moralizing against the evils of gambling. Jonathan H. Green was a reformed gambler, who made a career exposing cheating via lectures, presentations and books. An earlier shorter edition of this book was published under the title Games and Tricks with Cards. If you are looking for an edited version and somewhat modernized rendition of this book you can find it here.
| $8 to wish list | |
Games and Tricks with CardsJonathan H. GreenYou will find here card tricks, cheating exposes, card games, and gambling stories. A later expanded version of this book was published under the title Gamblers' Tricks With Cards Exposed and Explained.
| $8 to wish list | |
Gambling ExposedJonathan H. GreenFull exposition of all the various arts, mysteries, and miseries of gambling. It is a complete exposure, of the different and various ways of deception and cheating in all the numerous games played, such as Faro, Two, Three, and Four-Handed Poker, Shuffling Cards, Roulette and Rolling Faro, Vingt-Un, Brag, Euchre, Game of Boston, All Fours, Cribbage, Whist, Dice, Stealing out Cards, Palming, Playing by Signs, Marking Cards, Backgammon, Solitaire, Playing Three against One, Spring Tables, Spring Boxes, Pulleys, Ingenuity of Gamblers, Card Manufactories, Lotteries, then modes of drawing and... | $12 to wish list | |
Gambling in its Infancy and ProgressJonathan H. GreenA dissuasive to the young against games of chance.
| $8 to wish list | |
Wyman's Hand-Book of MagicJohn WymanThis work covers a lot of ground, from various parlor tricks, chemical tricks, card tricks, to a section on two person codes, and a section on artifices of cardsharks.
| ★★★★★ $8 to wish list | |
The Game of Draw PokerJohn W. KellerA fairly detailed work on the rules and variations of draw poker. Also includes some advice on how to play the game successfully. This work includes Robert C. Schenck's rules for draw poker.
| $8 to wish list | |
The True History of Pepper's GhostJohn Henry PepperJohn Henry Pepper took a projection invention of Henry Dircks, called The Ghost, with his permission, and made it practical so that it could more easily be performed. He earned a lot of money staging it. Even though Dircks did not want any payments from Pepper, there was a falling out between the two because the invention became known as Pepper's Ghost. Dircks wanted to have his name associated with it. This prompted Dircks to write The Ghost. Pepper's answer to that publication and dispute came almost 30 years later in this work The True History of the Ghost. He also includes the history and working of Metempsychosis... | $7 to wish list | |
The Secrets of Conjuring and MagicJean Eugene Robert-Houdin & Professor HoffmannThe original title is Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie. It was the collection of lessons and information Robert-Houdin intended to teach his sons to make them expert magicians. However, his sons did have other interests, mechanics and military, which led him to publish his recordings as book. Prof. Hoffmann has translated this masterpiece into English.
| ★★★★★ $9 to wish list | |
The Secrets of Stage ConjuringJean Eugene Robert-Houdin & Professor HoffmannTranslated by Professor Hoffmann.
| ★★★★★ $5 to wish list | |
Card Sharping ExposedJean Eugene Robert-Houdin & Professor HoffmannA translation of Les Trickeries des Grecs by M. Robert-Houdin, one of the most valuable and interesting works on the subject of card sharping. Excerpt from the preface: Meanwhile, the march of science has continued, and the arts of deception, like other arts, have received many new developments. There are fashions in fraud, as in more innocent matters. I have endeavoured in the present pages not only to offer a faithful translation of Robert-Houdin's text, but by the aid of notes to bring down his work, so to speak, to present date. In so doing I have to acknowledge special obligation... | ★★★★★ $12 to wish list | |
The Sharper Detected and ExposedJean Eugene Robert-HoudinThe first part consists of stories about cardsharks and other crooks from Robert-Houdin's recollections. This is very readable and an entertaining part of the work. The second part explains some of the technical details of the methods used by cardsharks. However, the methods are for the most part only described in very rudimentary form. As Robert-Houdin writes himself, this is not meant as a way to teach you how to do it, but merely to give the reader insight in how the different ruses are accomplished. Nevertheless, it provides interesting insight into the ways and means of cardsharks. This... | $7 to wish list | |
Magic and its MysteriesJ. Dazley TheobaldFrom the preface: In the following pages it has been my aim to give such plain and practical instructions, as shall enable the amateur conjurer to perform with confidence and success. In the limits of a book of this size, it is impossible to describe more than one-tenth of the various tricks in modern magic in vogue at the present day, and I have therefore carefully excluded the larger professional apparatus, such as are used only on the public stage, believing that what is most needed is a sound treatise on drawing-room magic, and I trust in the following pages the reader will find such... | ★★★★★ $10 to wish list | |
Amateur MagicianJ. Dazley TheobaldFrom the preface: The object of this work is to thoroughly explain to the Amateur Magician the various subterfuges which are made use of by Professional Conjurors to mystify their audiences, and to afford such instructions as shall enable any person to give a private performance. That there is plenty of room for a work on the subject of magical secrets and contrivances is evident by the few books that are in circulation, and even some of these are of but slight value, as they give graphic descriptions of what tricks are performed, while but scant and imperfect explanations of how they are... | ★★★★★ $8 to wish list | |
The GhostHenry DircksAs produced in the spectre drama, popularly illustrating the marvellous optical illusions obtained by the apparatus called the Dircksian Phantasmagoria being a full account of its history, construction, and various adaptations. Henry Dircks was the first who came up with the stage illusions that later became known as Pepper's Ghost. He had an arrangement with Pepper, they took out a patent in both their names, and Dircks did not want any monetary remuneration for it. John Henry Pepper improved the configuration to make it more practical and successfully staged it earning quite a lot of money with it. However,... | $7 to wish list | |
The Art of Modern Conjuring Magic and IllusionsHenri GarenneFrom the introduction: I have written this work not as an exposure of the art of Conjuring and Magic, but simply to act as a guide for amateurs and young beginners; therefore I shall enumerate many tricks and illusions that my young friends can perform at home amongst their numerous friends. In addition to this, I shall also enumerate those tricks and illusions which demand a larger amount of room, and also require specially constructed apparatus; such tricks the amateur would do well not to attempt, as they are only suitable for performance on a stage. I shall give a description of most... | ★★★★★ $8 to wish list | |
The Autobiography of an Old Sport: Fifty years at the Card TableHarry P. DodgeThe record of a career famous for adventure and vicissitude, and in which the jester won more tricks than the gamester.
| $5 to wish list | |
HellerismHarry Hermon | ★★★★★ $10 to wish list | |
History of Magic and MagiciansHardin Jasper BurlingameThis is a reprint of an interesting book from 1895. Mr. Burlingame covers the earliest days of magic, then goes into detail about magic and magicians as they existed in the 19th century. This material is seldom found in magic books of today, but the man who would be a complete magician should know something of the history of the art he follows. Well written and very interesting reading. 1st edition 1895, 1st digital edition 2013, 44 pages. | ★★★★★ $8.95 to wish listPDF & EPUB | |
Herrmann the MagicianHardin Jasper BurlingameFrom the preface: Having devoted a number of years to the inventing, manufacturing and sale of many of the most popular magical apparatus made in this country, I now present to the reader, biographies of the two great conjurers known to the world under the names of Carl and Alexander Herrmann, both equally famous in their specialties. The main portion of the book is devoted to clear, compact and illustrated descriptions of the best tricks performed by the two Herrmanns, whom I unite under the appellation of Herrmann the Magician, and by other celebrated performers, such as Cazeneuve, Kellar, Vanek, Heller, Samuels,... | ★★★★★ $6 to wish list | |
The Involuntary LifeGeorge Miller BeardThe 'involuntary life' would today be described as trance or as a hypnotic state. Beard writes: Every human being lives two lives, the voluntary, in which he acts more or less under the control of the will, and the involuntary, in which he acts automatically, and over which the will has but a limited power, or none at all. The acts of both the body and the mind, may be involuntary as will as voluntary, and in both body and mind, the two lives are constantly blended. However, he was a skeptic when it came to the popular practices and explanations of these phenomena by the means of animal... | $5 to wish list | |
The Study of Trance Muscle ReadingGeorge Miller BeardFrom the preface: The following narratives and analyses of facts relating to the investigation of important and interesting phenomena of the nervous system are published in the belief that they will be new, in whole or in part, to the majority of neurologists and practitioners, both in Europe and America. Some of the facts connected with the detailed history of muscle-reading are here put on permanent record for the first time, and have been obtained partly from memory and partly from public and private documents in my possession. It is interesting and incredible that these phenomena... | $8 to wish list |