Published 1800-1899 in Magic & Conjuring: page 2

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 ...

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...

Life and adventure on the prairies, mountains, and Pacific coast.

Beyond the Mississippi is a travel log of Albert Richardson from a few years before and after the American Civil War. As the title suggests, he traveled west of the Mississippi through states and territories such as Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming, Iowa, Oregon, California, Nevada, etc. He describes nature, people, politics, and commerce. It includes exciting adventures as well as fairly dry facts such as how many bushels of grain a particular area produces. Overall it is quite readable and the...

This 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.

W. H. J. Shaw was a magic dealer and apparatus manufacturer in Chicago. Like his magic dealer competitor August Roterberg he decided to write a magic book almost at the same time.

• Preface
• The Mystic Percolator
• Water Into Ice
• The National Ball Transformation
• New Spirit Ghost Seance
• Spirit Bell On Glass Top Table
• The Spiritual Ring Test
• The Extinguished Cigar
• The Charmed Organ Pipes
• D’Alvini’s Album Trick
• Lightning, Slate And Blackboard Test
• The Egyptian Cremation
• New Hat Fake
• The Diamond Mystery
• The Spirit Scribe
• A Live Hat
• Changing Decapitation
• The Wonderful Lager-Beer Glass And Paper...

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...

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

From the Preface:

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...

From the preface:

From the introduction:

From the preface:

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...

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...

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...

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. ...

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.

A complete handbook of legerdemain, containing all the latest optical, chemical, mechanical, and magical tricks and deceptions, amusing transmutations, astonishing sleights and subtleties, together with all the noted tricks of modern magicians and prestidigitators.

If you always wanted to make a mouse come out of a pack of cards, change salt to sugar, or make fire burn under water, this may be just the book for you. The author only identifies himself as 'An Old Conjuror'.

Excerpt from the publisher's preface:

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...

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...

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...

Instructions for games, magic tricks, model building, giving shows, and more.

• Games Of Skill
  • Draughts
    • Laws Of The Game
    • Games For Practice
    • Concluding Observations
  • Dominoes
  • Chess
    • The Chess-Board And Chessmen
    • Value And Moves Of The Pieces
    • Laws Of Chess
    • Technical Terms Used In Chess
    • Opening The Game
    • Games For Practice
    • General Observations
    • Conclusion
  • Morrice
  • Fox And Geese
• Conjuring
  • Legerdemain And Simple Deceptions
  • To Lift A Bottle With A Straw
  • The Tobacco Pipe Jug Stand
  • To Break A Stick Placed On Two Glasses
  • The Bottle Conjuror
  • The Mysterious Wafers
  • Advantageous...

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,...

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...

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