Published 1800-1899 in Magic & Conjuring

This 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.

• description Of The Magician's Table
• How To Make A Person Jump
• The Invisible Chicken, Or Enchanted Egg Bag, As Performed By The Celebrated Wyman
• Scrap, Or Blowing Book, As Performed By Potter
• Gun Cotton - How Prepared
• Sympathetic Inks
• Apparatus For Writing In The Dark
• Dancing Turkeys
• The Self-Balanced Pail
• Sympathetic Lamp
• The Gas Candle
• Ice Made In A Red Hot Vessel
• Magical Colours
• The Magic Nosegay Blowing At The...

A Chicago dealer who did manufacture his own apparatus.

1st edition 1893, 24 pages.

A nicely illustrated article explaining some of the popular pseudo-strength demonstrations made popular for example by Lulu Hurst and others.

200 years ago demonstrations of this kind created a sensation. Nobody could explain them. Many believed these were manifestations of some yet unexplained force. Today they are relegated to party stunts. Nevertheless, some are quite surprising demonstrations you can try out in your living room.

1st edition 1928, PDF 6 pages.

A complete manual of card conjuring. This is not identical to the card sections in Hoffmann's other books such as Modern Magic etc. But this book has been released in sections under the titles Card Tricks With Apparatus and Card Tricks Without Apparatus since 1893. It appears Hoffmann was not too happy about breaking it up into parts.

• CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY
• CHAPTER II. SLEIGHT OF HAND PROCESSES, APPLICABLE TO CARD CONJURING
  • To Make the Pass
  • To Make the Pass with both Hands
  • Single-handed Pass, No. 1
  • Single-handed Pass, No. 2
  • Single-handed Pass, No. 3
  • To Force a Card
  • To Force a Person to Think...

Interesting here are not only the many card tricks described but also a section on crooked gambling at the very end.

[Note that pages 11-14 are missing in our original from which this digital edition has been prepared.]

• Instructions For Amateurs
• How To Make The Pass
• Forcing A Card
• The "Long Card"
• The Divining Card
• Deceptive Shuffles
• To Smuggle A Card
• To Slip A Card
• To Carry Away A Card
• To Place A Card
• The Ten Duplicate Cards—To Reveal A Person’s Thoughts
• The Changeable Ace
• The Convertible Aces
• The Metamorphosed Cards
• The Gathering Of The Clans
• To Tell The Number Of Cards By The Weight
• To Make A Card Pass From One Hand Into The Other
• The Card Hit Upon By Guess
• Ups...

John 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...

In 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...

From the preface:

The 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...

Translated by Professor Hoffmann.

• PREFACE
• CHAPTER I. The Theatre Of Robert-Houdin
• CHAPTER II. A Conjuror’s Stage Arrangements
• CHAPTER III. Handkerchief Tricks
• CHAPTER IV. The Light And Heavy Chest
• CHAPTER V. The Hundred Candles Lighted By A Pistol Shot
• CHAPTER VI. The Ghost Illusion
• CHAPTER VII. The Indian Basket Trick
• CHAPTER VIII. Spiritualistic Manifestations
• CHAPTER IX. The Bust Of Socrates
• CHAPTER X. A Curious Effect In Acoustics
• CHAPTER XI. The Decapitated Speaking
• CHAPTER XII. The Protean Cabinet
• CHAPTER XIII. The Feats Of The Davenport Brothers
• CHAPTER XIV. The Enchanted...

The 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.

• Editor's Preface
• Author's Preface
• Introduction
• Home of Robert-Houdin
• Conjuring and Its Professors
• Art of Conjuring
• Coin Conjuring
• General Principles
• Coin Tricks
• Card Conjuring
• Sundry Expedients
• Cups and Balls
• Various Tricks ...

Showing the various ways of performing tricks by sleight-of-hand on dice, cards, etc., together with many surprising deceptions.

• To change a Box of Bird Seed into a living Bird
• To thrust a Bodkin into your Forehead without any hurt
• Breslaw's grand Deception of the little learned Swan
• The mode of shewing the Hen and Egg Bag, and out of an empty Bag to bring upwards of an Hundred Eggs, and afterwards a live Hen
• How to seem to change a Card into a King or Queen
• Card burnt, and afterwards found in a Watch
• A curious trick played with a Fowl
• How to eat Fire, and blow it up in your Mouth...

100 tricks for the drawing room.

Containing an extensive and miscellaneous collection of conjuring and legerdemain; sleights with dice, dominoes, cards, ribbons, rings, fruit, coins, balls, handkerchiefs, etc. All of which may be performed in the parlor or drawing room. Without the aid of any apparatus; also embracing a choice variety of curious deceptions which may be performed with the aid of simple apparatus.

• PART I. TRICKS OF LEGERDEMAIN, CONJURING, SLEIGHT OF HAND, AND OTHER FANCIES, COMMONLY CALLED "WHITE MAGIC"
  • Preliminary Observation
  • Palming Coin
  • The Magic Coin
  • To Untie a...

A detailed chronology of places, dates and performers of fairs in and around London. We learn mostly of theatrical productions of various kinds including pantomime and dances, and menageries exhibiting exotic animals, and less so of tumbling and acrobats, juggling, balancing and the like. It includes some coverage of conjurers including Fawkes, Pinchbeck, Breslaw and others. There is some overlap of stories from Circus Life and Circus Celebrities because some performers and operators were active in both venues.

• PREFACE
• CHAPTER I: Origin of Fairs - Charter Fairs at Winchester and Chester - Croydon Fairs - Fairs in the Metropolis...

For magicians most interesting is a section with arithmetic tricks and another with legerdemain featuring effects such as letting a pen-knife jump out of a goblet, some card tricks, coin tricks, and chemical tricks.

• Of Astrological Influence
• Lives Of The Most Eminent Magicians, Astrologers, Conjurers, &c.
• On The Interpretation Of Dreams
• Apparitions, Witchcraft, &c.
• Philolosphical And Ingenious Amusements
  • A person having fixed on a number in his mind, to tell him what number it is
  • Another method of discovering a number thought on
  • A quantity of eggs being broken, to find how many there...

Roterberg was a dealer, but he also wrote excellent magic books - four altogether. The Card Tricks and how to do them is an excerpt from New Era Card Tricks. So actually he wrote only three books. The Modern Wizard was his first one. It explains tricks with silks, eggs, glasses, billiard balls, coins, candles, pill boxes and more. Roterberg has a very efficient style of describing a trick. He supplies no patter or other fluff, but still manages to explain a trick thoroughly. He packs 68 tricks or methods into merely 120 pages. He closes his book with the chapter "The Art of Magic" where Roterberg gives a crash course in how to be a good magician....

This work reveals a mix of card tricks and other small magic effects, science tricks, and in particular chemical stunts and experiments. It also covers the making of fireworks in some depth including how to make an artificial volcano.

Interesting was that even in 1850 it was clear that experimenting with mercury (quicksilver) was risky as the following quote from the book shows:

(Obviously, nobody should be casually experimenting with mercury. It is...

This is considered one of the best early histories of magic.

From the Preface:

Being a record of his experience as a white slave; a soldier in the Union Army; a professional gambler; a patron of the turf; a variety theater and minstrel manager; and, finally, a convert to the Murphy Cause, and to the Gospel of Christ.

This book is an illustration of this paragraph by S.W. Erdnase:

This is a wonderful account of a traveling showman's trials and tribulations in England and Scotland during the middle of the 19th century. Among other things, he was a conjurer. While this is not a book of tricks, one coin trick is explained as part of one story of his life. But much more interesting are the descriptions of various scams and the modus operandi of various ways to defraud the public by traveling hucksters the author encountered. The operation of the thimble rig is explained in detail. It is an account of how traveling showmen struggled essentially their entire life to make...

The 'involuntary life' would today be described as trance or as a hypnotic state. Beard writes:

However, he was a skeptic when it came to the popular practices and explanations of these phenomena by the means of animal...

Includes chapters on conjuring, fortune-telling and card-sharping.

• Preface
• Part The First. The History Of Cards
  • I. Introduction
  • II. Oriental Origin Of Cards
  • III. Introduction Of Cards Into Southern Europe
  • IV. Date Of Introduction Of Cards
  • V. Introduction Of Cards Into France
  • VI. The Cards Of Charles VI
  • VII. Invention Of The French Cards And Game Of Piquet
  • VIII. Cards In England
  • IX. History Of Tarots, As Told By Themselves
  • X. Modern History Of French And English Cards
  • XI. The Application Of Cards To Science
  • XII. Card Miscellanies
• Part The Second. Card Playing And Card Players...

A humoristic manual about swindling, how to become a successful swindler, as well as why it is such a good thing - featuring the late captain Barabbas Whitefeather.

• Preface Of The Editor
• Chapter I. The Reader Is Introduced To Captain Whitefeather's Relations.
• Chapter II. Captain Whitefeather Takes An Enlarged View Of Swindling - Social Evils And Their Remedy.
• Chapter III. Of The Face Necessary To A Swindler - (An Incidental Speculation On The "Division Of Property") - And Of The Use And Abuse Of Mustachios.
• Chapter IV. Of The Parentage And Name Of A Swindler - Of His Equipage - Of His...

As 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,...

Reminiscences of the life of humorist Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne) and pictures of a showman's career in the Western world.

A wonderful account of show business by the example of the humorist Artemus Ward during the 19th century. In particular, it describes how performers had to travel through the US during the 1860s, how they had to advertise and promote their shows, including the characters they encountered and the situations they had to master.

For conjurers most interesting is chapter 25: Spiritualism And Conjuring. This tells of how Hingston and Browne helped a conjurer by...

A 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.

• PREFACE
• CHAPTER I
  • Introduction
  • The Element of Chance
  • The Question of Stakes
• CHAPTER II
  • Technical Terms
• CHAPTER III
  • The Order of Hands
  • The Straight
  • The Blaze
• CHAPTER IV
  • Rules of Draw Poker
  • The Limit
  • The Ante
  • The Straddle
  • The Deal
  • Betting Before the Draw
  • Discard and Draw
  • Betting After the Draw
• CHAPTER V
  • Jack Pots
  • Incidental Jack Pots
  • The "Buck"
  • Progressive Jack Pots
• CHAPTER VI
  • Freeze Out
• CHAPTER...

Familiar and scientific explanation of legerdemain, physical amusement, recreative chemistry, diversions with cards, and of all the minor mysteries of mechanical magic, with feats. As performed in public by Herr Alexander, Robert Houdin, "The Wizard of the North," and distinguished conjurors of all ages and nations.

• PUBLISHER'S ANNOUNCEMENT.
• PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTION.
• PART FIRST. MINOR TRICKS FOR SOCIAL COMPANY.
  • SECTION FIRST. Arithmetical ingenuities.
    • I. How to divine the numbers remaining in a sum which some person has thought of.
    • II. How To Find 6 Times 13 In 12
    • III. A comic dilemma.
    • IV....

A series of letters, between an unidentified friend and his correspondent (William Frederick Pinchbeck) comprising of how to train a pig, invisible lady and acoustic temple, philosophical swan, penetrating spy glasses, several magic tricks, such as how to catch a bullet, and reflections on ventriloquism.

This book includes the first known description of the "Eight Kings" card stack.

1. Method of teach the Pig – from Letter I. to IX. See also Letter V. Appendix
2. Principles of the Acoustic Temple – from Letter IX. To XIV. See also Letter II. Appendix.
3. A Demonstration of the philosophical...

This is a lovely old-school children's story about a pig named Grunter Growler, his life on a farm, his animal as well as human friends, and his success winning 1st prize as the most beautiful pig in the country.

The interesting part for conjurers is that Grunter meets Toby the Learned Pig which includes a description of a typical performance of Toby. Those who study and research learned pigs might find it interesting. All learned pigs in England were named Toby. It is therefore not clear which Toby was the model for this description.

• Preface
• Chapter I. Introductory
• Chapter II. Our...

• Chapter I: Introduction
• Chapter II: Dress, Table, Wand, Apparatus, And Stage
• Chapter III: Tricks With Handkerchiefs
• Chapter IV: Palming, Passing, And Changing Coins, Rings, And Small Articles
• Chapter V: Tricks With Coins Not Requiring Apparatus
• Chapter VI: Coin Tricks Requiring Apparatus
• Chapter VII: Tricks With Cups And Balls
• Chapter VIII: Tricks With Rings
• Chapter IX: Tricks With Hats
• Chapter X: Tricks With Watches
• Chapter XI: Tricks With Dice And Dominoes
• Chapter XII: Tricks With Electricity
• Chapter XIII: Miscellaneous Tricks
• Chapter XIV: Spiritualism And Mesmerism

1st edition...

• TRICKS WITH CARDS
  1. How To Make The Pass
  2. The Long Card
  3. To Produce a Particular Card without Seeing the Pack
  4. To Call for Any Card in the Pack
  5. The Changeable Ace
  6. The Convertible Aces
  7. The Gathering of the Clans
  8. Everybody's Card
  9. Forcing a Card
  10. The Card hit upon by Guess
  11. Ups and Downs
  12. To Tell The Card That A Person Has Touched With His Finger
  13. The Card Discovered by Touch or Smell
  14. Confederate Cards
  15. The Ten Duplicates, or Cards in Couples
  16. The Turn-Over Feat
  17. The Nerve Feat
  18. To Tell The Number Of Cards By The Weight
  19. To Change the Card by Word of Command
  20. The Card in a Mirror
  21. The...

The record of a career famous for adventure and vicissitude, and in which the jester won more tricks than the gamester.

• Preface
• Chapter I: Birth And Early Peregrinations
• Chapter II: Becoming A Patron Of The Pasteboards
• Chapter III: Early Times On The Mississippi
• Chapter IV: Getting A Sobriquet And Meeting Great Men
• Chapter V: The Turnpikes, The Packets And The Inns
• Chapter VI: Initiated In The Sons Of Malta
• Chapter VII: From The Green Mountains To Pike's Peak
• Chapter VIII: With The Bold Soldier Boys
• Chapter IX: The Fraternity Of Gamesters
• Chapter X: To Point A Moral And Adorn A...

From the introduction:

A collection of graceful arts, merry games, and odd tricks, intended to amuse everybody and enable all to amuse everybody else. Full of suggestions for private theatricals, tableaux, charades, and all sorts of parlor and family amusements. With nearly 150 illustrative pictures.

In the days without the Internet, TV, or even radio, people entertained themselves. This book covers all kinds of things one can do from arts and crafts, little plays, simple conjuring tricks, and other activities.

1st edition 1866, 302 pages; PDF 157 pages.