Herrmann, Carl | A pamphlet "containing explanations of 200 tricks for amateur prestidigitateurs"

Herrmann, Carl

The Fashionable Science of Parlor Magic. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, [1870]

16mo (195 x 115 mm). Twenty illustrations; dampstaining, some foxing, a few pages with marginal tears. Sewn in original wrappers, cover with three engravings of magician's tricks; wrapper worn, chipped with loss at spine.

Herrmann copied this pamphlet "containing explanations of 200 tricks for amateur prestidigitateurs" from The Great Wizard of the North, John Henry Anderson, who had published it over a decade earlier. The pamphlet contains tricks grouped under "Parlor Magic," "An Exposure of the Practices Made Use of by Professional Card Players, Blacklegs and Gamblers," "Ruses," and "Miscellaneous Tricks." A preface offers some advice: "To those who mingle in society, and yet neither sing nor tell a good story, the sciences here put within their grasp will be invaluable; while to those who have acquired both the former accomplishments, the latter will be an addition that will not diminish the interest of the qualifications to please they already possess, but impart a power of agreeableness not to be otherwise attained."