Breslaw's Last Legacy, or the Conjurer Unmasked

A Georgian bestseller sold under the name of the famous conjurer Breslaw. Sleight of hand, card and coin deceptions, number tricks and parlour amusements, plus the curiosities of its age, from dream readings to the new air balloon. This scan is the tenth edition of 1792.

What’s inside

1. The air balloon — its description and making, as practised in France and England
2. The twelve signs of the zodiac — the signs, the planets that rule the days, and those born under them
3. Colour changes and curious recreations — changing the colour of a rose, hideous faces by candlelight, engraving an eggshell
4. Sleight of hand and deception — the ring and dove in the pistol, the torn handkerchief, card tricks, the roasted fowl
5. Tricks with dice — with a warning against turning a pastime into gaming
6. Palmistry and the signification of moles
7. Paradoxes — geographical puzzles, with their solutions
8. Interpretation of dreams
9. Electricity — its uses, and Mr. Rackstrow’s electrical experiments
10. Practical jokes — phosphorus writing that appears in the dark, and other frights
11. The canary bird, sympathetic inks and the artificial spider
12. Mr. Breslaw’s grand deceptions — card tricks and the learned little swan
13. Jugglers’ feats — ribbons from the mouth, the halfpence trick, a celebrated trick of Jonas
14. Telling fortunes with cards
15. Curious experiments — phosphorus, melting steel like lead, a smoking chemical mixture
16. Arithmetical tricks — rubbing out twenty chalks, gold and silver, who has the ring, think of a number
17. The artificial bird
18. The burned card restored — the card nailed to the wall by a pistol, the card found in a watch
19. Puzzles and diversions — breaking a staff on two glasses, the apple sellers, a glorious light from a candle
20. Comical stories — how to travel all England over without a farthing, and other tales

Philip Breslaw, 1784. Complete 111-page PDF. Free to download: check out at $0 and the file arrives by email and on your order page.

This classic is in the public domain. Scans come from library copies, so expect the odd stain or stamp of an old book.