Published 1800-1899 in Magic & Conjuring: page 2

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...

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 ...

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...

A 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:

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...

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...

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...

This 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.

• Chapter I
  • Invention Of Cards
  • Mysterious Trick...

You 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.

• Chapter I
  • Invention Of Cards
  • Mysterious Trick Of Thirty Six Cards; Telling The Card You Look At Without Seeing The Pack.
  • To Tell A Card Thought Of
  • Three Jacks As Thieves, Caught By A King As A Policeman
  • To Burn A Card And Fin'd It In A Watch
  • How To Shift Cards
  • The Four Associates
  • To Make A Card Jump Out Of The Pack
  • How To Change Cards To Pictures
• Chapter II
  • All Fours
  • Deceptions Used In The Game Of All Fours
  • How To...

Full 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...

A dissuasive to the young against games of chance.

• DIALOGUE I. On Playing Pins.
• DIALOGUE II. On Playing Marbles.
• DIALOGUE III. On Pitching Coppers.
• DIALOGUE IV. On Matching And Tossing Coppers, Throwing Heads And Tails, &c.
• DIALOGUE V. On Sabbath Breaking - Telling Lies - Disobedience To Parents, &c.
• DIALOGUE VI. On The Use Of Tobacco.
• DIALOGUE VII. On Playing Various Games.
• DIALOGUE VIII. On Gamblers, Lotteries, &c.
• Death Of A Boy On A Race Course.
• Social Card-Parties.
• The Gambler's Victim.
• The Ruined Family; Or, A Warning To Those Who Play For Amusement.
• The Charm Of Gambling. ...

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...

Concerning 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.

• Preface
• Introduction
• Marks And Stamps
• Watermark
• Disfigurement Of Edges
• Nail Impressions
• Ruffling
• Roughening
• Bleaching
• Crimping
• Erasing
• Evaporating
• Glazing
• Enamel
• Acidulated
• Other Marks
• Pricking
• Trimmed
• Briefs
• Wedges
• Strippers Or Humps
• Scratches
• Filling And Burnishing
• Assorted
• Cut-Off
• Shading
• Scrolling
• Stamped Or Readers
• Portable...

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...

This is a fairly typical magic book from the 19th century. It mixes magic tricks and illusions with science experiments. Due to the fact that back then many did not have a basic understanding of physics and chemistry, many of these exhibitions of science appeared like magic.

• How to Cut Your Arm off without Hurt or Danger
• The Basket Trick
• To Knock a Tumbler Through a Table
• To Drive One Tumbler Through Another
• The Dancing Skeleton
• To Place Water in a Drinking-glass Upside Down
• The Faded Rose Restored
• The Protean Liquid
• Eatable Candle Ends
• To Make a Watch Stop or Go at the Word of Command ...

For the first time explains and demonstrates the great secret of her marvelous power.

In this autobiography, Lulu Hurst tells her rise to fame and fortune by performing acts of incredible strength on stage. She does this with personal recollections as well as quoting from various newspaper reports. At the time she performed many attributed her strength to some as of yet unknown or unexplainable force. But she had no unusual strength or the aid of any special force. She cleverly used mechanical principles as well as showmanship to make it appear she had super-human strength. In the second...

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:

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....

After a lengthy introduction, it describes and explains the performances of the muscle-reader Mr. Brown. It also describes and explains the performances of the brothers Outerbridge whose purpose it was to prove that these types of experiments are based on muscle-reading and not any other mysterious mental forces.

This talk was given before the Social Science Association on May 12th, 1875.

Persifor Frazer was an interesting character. For example, he was internationally respected as an expert on handwriting. He devised a process for detecting forgeries through composite photography, leading...

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.

Every generation a magician comes along, whose intention is to record magic in an encyclopedic fashion. Professor Hoffmann was the first in recorded history to attempt such a feat with his trilogy Modern Magic, More Magic, and Later Magic. Certainly many magic books have been published before him, mostly copying from each other. But none reaches the depth and breadth of Prof. Hoffmann's work. The material in these three books records the state of the art of magic in the late 19th century. Today we know more tricks and we have also refined our techniques and methods. But it is astounding how much was already known...

This is the second volume of the Hoffmann trilogy. If you liked Modern Magic you will love More Magic. There is too much to list. Refer to the 'Table of Contents' below for details. This book was rated one of the ten basic books for a working library of conjuring by H. Adrian Smith, historian, collector and owner of the largest private magic library in his time. Other books in this top 10 list are

• Magicians' Tricks by Henry Hatton and Adrian Plate
• The Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase
• The Art of Magic by T. Nelson Downs
• Modern Magic by Prof. Hoffmann
• Later Magic by Prof. Hoffmann
• The Modern Conjurer by C. Lang Neil
• Our Magic by Maskelyne and Devant
• Tarbell Course by Harlan Tarbell
• Greater Magic by John Northern Hilliard

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...

Being an explanation of the game, and a warning against its dangers.

Excerpt from the preface: