THE WHOLE ART OF LEGERDEMAIN, OR HOCUS POCUS LAID OPEN AND EXPLAINED BY THOSE RENOWNED MASTERS SENA SAMA, HAMED BEN ALLA, AND ALL THE CELEBRATED AND MYSTERIOUS PROFESSORS OF THE ART OF NATURAL MAGIC,

Dean, Henry

Published by Leary & Getz, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1853

About this Item

[The title continues:] WITH FULL INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO PERFORM THE VARIOUS TRICKS, ON CARDS, DICE, BIRDS, RINGS &c. Engraved frontispiece, 71 pages of text, and a 64 page catalogue of "historical, theological, juvenile, and miscellaneous" books published by Leary & Getz. 16mo. First Philadelphia edition, preceded in the United States only by editions published in New York and Boston. Like all early editions, this one is rare--WorldCat locates only 3 copies in libraries worldwide. First published in 1722, the book drew extensively on Reginald Scot's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) and William Vincent's Hocus Pocus Jr. The Anatomie of Legerdemain (1634) for its description of magic tricks, many of which are performed by magicians today. The book's popularity among magicians was so strong that there were numerous editions published in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but paradoxically demand was so limited that few copies of any of those editions have survived. Little is known about the author, who has been described variously as a magician, a bookseller, a publisher, a seller of magical apparatus--some even suggesting that there was no Henry Dean. Some recent scholarship indicates that he may have been a surgeon with an interest in magic. Whoever he was, Henry Dean has had a significant impact on the practice of performance magic. Among the magic "tricks" explained are many that clearly draw upon Scot's attempts to debunk beliefs in witchcraft (e.g., restoring a fly to life and making a bird appear to be dead) and others that explain the performance magic of Hocus Pocus (e.g., "the dancing egg" and "the card nailed upon the wall by a pistol shot"). Our copy of the book has been sympathetically rebacked with Japanese paper and is clean and tight, with relatively minor foxing scattered thoughout; there is some rubbing and old soiling of the paper covered boards, but the printed text and decorative borders remain intact, bright, and legible. Size: 16mo - over 5¾" - 6¾" tall.

Seller Inventory # W1796

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE WHOLE ART OF LEGERDEMAIN, OR HOCUS POCUS LAID OPEN AND EXPLAINED BY THOSE RENOWNED MASTERS SENA SAMA, HAMED BEN ALLA, AND ALL THE CELEBRATED AND MYSTERIOUS PROFESSORS OF THE ART OF NATURAL MAGIC,
• Publisher: Leary & Getz, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Publication Date: 1853
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Philadelphia Edition.
• Condition: Collectible-Very Good
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Magic