Sidney W. Clarke

This bibliography collects about 2000 works that deal with tricks and illusions, and with the varied deceptions that are usually presented as part of a conjuring entertainment, including automata, chapeaugraphy, chemical and electrical tricks, escaping, fire handling, gamblers' tricks, hand-shadows, juggling, lightning sketches, optical illusions, pseudo-spiritualistic manifestations, second sight, thought reading, thought transference and ventriloquism. The list includes languages other than English in particular German and French books. Excluded are books on the so-called occult arts, but...

This is the first real history of magic in the English language. It first appeared in serialized from in The Magic Wand.

Sidney W. Clarke tells the story of magic from its earliest traces in recorded history, all the way to the celebrated masters of Robert-Houdin, Maskelyne, and the ones who followed them.

[Note: This edition was newly formatted for convenient reading and searching on mobile devices.]

1st digital edition 2013, 288 pages.

Table of Contents

4. Introduction
9. Ancient Conjuring
15. The Mediaeval Jugglers
29. The Jugglers’ Tricks
43. Hocus Pocus
57. The English Showmen
88. Continental Conjurers In The XVIIIth Century
114. The Decline Of Conjuring
127. The Wizard Of The North And The Mechanical Conjurers
158. Robert-Houdin ...