Modern magic : A practical treatise on the art of conjuring. . been difficult to name asingle book worth reading upon this subject, thewhole literature of the art consisting of singlechapters in books written for the amusement ofyouth (which were chiefly remarkable for theunanimity each copied, without acknowledgment, from itspredecessors), and handbooks sold at the entertainments of variouspublic performers, who took care not to reveal therein any trickwhich they deemed worthy of performance by themselves. Upona little consideration, however, the scarcity of treatises on WhiteMagic
Modern magic : A practical treatise on the art of conjuring. . been difficult to name asingle book worth reading upon this subject, thewhole literature of the art consisting of singlechapters in books written for the amusement ofyouth (which were chiefly remarkable for theunanimity each copied, without acknowledgment, from itspredecessors), and handbooks sold at the entertainments of variouspublic performers, who took care not to reveal therein any trickwhich they deemed worthy of performance by themselves. Upona little consideration, however, the scarcity of treatises on WhiteMagic is easily accounted for. The more important secrets of theart have been known but to few, and those few have jealouslyguarded them, knowing that the more closely they concealed the clueto their mysteries, the more would those mysteries be valued. Indeed,the more noted conjurors of fifty years ago strove to keep the secretof their best tricks not only from the outside world, but from theirconfreres. At the present day the secrets of the art are not so well x. 2 MODERN MAGIC. kept j and there is hardly a trick performed upon the stage which theamateur may not, at a sufficient expenditure of shillings or guineas,procure at the conjuring depots. There being, therefore, no longerthe same strict secresy, the literature of magic has improved a little,though it still leaves much to be desired. The general ambition ofcompilers seems to be to produce books containing nominally somefabulous number of tricks. In order to do this, they occupy two-thirds of their space with chemical and arithmetical recreations, and,as a necessary result, the portion devoted to conjuring tricks, pro-perly so called, is treated so briefly and scantily as to be practicallyuseless. There is a vast difference between telling how a trick is done andteaching how to doit. The existing treatises, with few exceptions, dothe former only. The intention of the present work is to do thelatter also j to teach sleight-of-
Size: 1143px × 2186px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublisherlondon, bookyear188
