The Old and the New Magic

A richly illustrated history of conjuring from the ancient temple wonders to the stage stars of the early 1900s, with chapters on Robert-Houdin and the great performers who followed him.

What’s inside

1. Introduction — by Dr. Paul Carus, on the old magic and the new
2. History of natural magic and prestidigitation
3. The Chevalier Pinetti
4. Cagliostro: a study in charlatanism
5. Ghost-making extraordinary — Robertson’s phantoms, Pepper’s ghost and Robin’s spectres
6. The romance of automata
7. Robert-Houdin: conjurer, author and ambassador
8. Some old-time conjurers — Comte, Bosco, Anderson, Blitz, Herr Alexander, Frikell
9. The secrets of second sight — Robert Heller and the Svengali trio
10. The confessions of an amateur conjurer
11. A day with Alexander the Great — Alexander Herrmann
12. A twentieth-century thaumaturgist — Harry Kellar
13. A gentleman of Thibet — the occultist Dr. de Sarak
14. Magicians I have met — Imro Fox and others
15. The riddle of the Sphinx — Colonel Stodare’s Sphinx illusion
16. Treweyism — Félicien Trewey and his hand shadows

Henry Ridgely Evans, 1906 · Open Court Publishing Co. Complete 416-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.