Fawks [Isaac Fawkes] | A scarce and important early handbill, describing Fawke's magical repertoire in great detail

Fawks [Isaac Fawkes]

By His Majesty's Permission ... Famous Fawks's Dexterity of Hand ... together with French Boy the Posture Master. [London: ca. 1720s]

Printed broadside handbill (175 x 108 mm). Laid down, light spotting and thumbsoiling. 

The present handbill, one of as few as three surviving broadsides relating to Fawkes, (see also adjacent lots) presents further description of Fawkes's conjuring repertoire: "He lays his little Bag upon the Table, and shoes you that it is empty; first, He commands a great many Eggs out of it, then several Showers of real Gold and Silver; then you perceive the Bag begin to swell, and several sorts of curious Indian Birds run out of it alive, as Cockatoos, Paraketes [sic], Virginia Nightingales, and others..." 

Further, it includes lengthy description of the contortion act accompanying his Dexterity of Hand: "[The French Boy] stands upon his own Shoulders, he makes a Seat of his own Head, and sits as proper upon his Head as any Person can upon a Chair, he contracts his whole Body upon the bottom of a drinking Glass, he folds his Body three or four double like a piece of Cloth..."

A scarce and important early handbill, describing Fawke's magical repertoire in great detail

REFERENCE:

Exemplars, p. 18; cf. EE, pp. 26-27