Magic tricks -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Before I proceed to the practical discussion of my subject, it may be as well perhaps to give a few particulars concerning the theatre founded by me under the title of the _Théâtre des Soirées Fantastiques de Robert-Houdin_,[3] in which I exhibited, during a long series of yea...
Before I proceed to the practical discussion of my subject, it may be as well perhaps to give a few particulars concerning the theatre founded by me under the title of the _Théâ...
2. CHAPTER II.The furniture of a conjuror’s stage is not merely designed to please the eye of the spectator, but serves, in addition, to facilitate the execution of many of his marvels. The t...
3. CHAPTER III.Here is, meanwhile, a pretty little trick (as yet unpublished) performed with a handkerchief, and which I used at my séances as a kind of interlude. I can recommend it as produc...
4. CHAPTER IV.Among the illusions which I have, from time to time, contrived, in order--if I may venture to say it--to cheat my friendly spectators, I do not think, modesty apart, that I ever...
5. CHAPTER V.We say “the hundred candles,” in order to preserve to the trick the title under which it has been generally exhibited, but, as will presently be seen, even a larger number may b...
6. CHAPTER VI.The trick known as the “ghost illusion” is one of the most curious ever produced by optical science. The apparitions produced by its means are most startling in effect, and leav...
7. CHAPTER VII.It was asserted that the illusion in question had been brought over from India by the conjuror-colonel; but in such case, as the reader will judge from the following description...
8. CHAPTER VIII.The gradual rise and suspension in mid-air of a human being, the uplifting of a table, and its removal from one point to another are spiritualistic “manifestations,” by dint of...
9. CHAPTER IX.Let the reader picture to himself, completely isolated and suspended without visible support in the middle of the stage, a living bust with the features of Socrates. Notwithstan...
10. CHAPTER X.This experiment, the invention of Mr. Wheatstone, the celebrated English physicist, was exhibited at the London Polytechnic Institution, in the year 1855.[39] The stage arrangem...
11. CHAPTER XI.This ingenious illusion did not originally bear so ghastly a title. It was exhibited under the name of the “_Sphinx_,” at the Egyptian Hall, London, in 1865, by a conjuror known...
12. CHAPTER XII.The accompanying illustration will give some idea of the piece of furniture used in the performance of the trick which we are about to describe. It is, as will be seen, a kind o...
13. CHAPTER XIII.In the month of September, 1865, two Americans, Ira and William Davenport, landed in France for the purpose of giving a series of marvellous performances, under the title of _Sp...
14. PART I.--_The Cabinet._--We are in one of the smaller rooms belongingto the _Salle Herz_, in the _Rue de la Victoire_, a room which may accommodate some sixty persons. The apartment is divided by a railing of a little more than a yard high into t...
15. PART II.--_The Dark Séance._--The scenic arrangements of thisexhibition are of the simplest possible character. The cabinet and its trestles are removed and put on one side, and are replaced by a small table, on which are placed two guita...
16. CHAPTER XIV.Every one knows that it is an axiom of physics, that that which is contained is smaller than that which contains it, and conversely. This incontestible truth, or axiom, however,...
17. CHAPTER XV.At the command of the magician, a drum, placed upon a slender tripod-stand, beats sundry marches with the skill and precision of a regimental drum-major; with this difference, h...