The Online Books Page

Tricks

Here are entered works on tricks or deceptions which are performed for entertainment purposes. Works on deliberate attempts to dupe, trick, or deceive persons into believing the reality or truth of evidence or assertions that are not true or real are entered under Hoaxes.

See also what's at Wikipedia, your library, or elsewhere.

• Amusements

• Card tricks
• Fire eating
• Magic tricks
• Trick roping

• Fifty New Card Tricks: A Comprehensive Description of the Continuous Front and Back Hand Palm With Cards and the Sensational New Rising Card Trick; Also Many New and Unpublished Tricks With Cards (New York: Wehman Bros., ca. 1900), by Howard Thurston (page images at HathiTrust)
• Howard Thurston's Card Tricks: Being a Fin de Siècle Manual on the Art of Conjuring With Cards, Including, Among Many Hitherto Unpublished Novel and Unique Experiments, a Comprehensive Description of the Continuous Front and Back-Hand Palm With Cards, and the Sensational New Rising Card Trick (Baltimore: I. and M. Ottenheimer, c1903), by Howard Thurston (page images at HathiTrust)
• New Era Card Tricks (London: W. and F. Hamley, c1897), by August Roterberg, illust. by L. R. Gossett (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Sealed Mysteries: Explaining the Latest Card Mysteries and Spirit Tricks Made Public for the First Time, with Directions for Constructing Trick Cards (Brooklyn, NY: Master Technic Pub. Co., c1911), by Burling Hull
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Artifice, Ruse and Subterfuge at the Card Table: A Treatise on the Science and Art of Manipulating Cards (Chicago: F. J. Drake and Co., c1902), by S. W. Erdnase (page images at HathiTrust)

• Fortune-Telling by Cards (New York: R. P. Fenno and Company, ca. 1920), by P. R. S. Foli (illustrated HTML with commentary at sacred-texts.com)
• The Square of Sevens: An Authoritative System of Cartomancy (New York: Harper and Bros., 1897), by Edward Prime-Stevenson (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)

• Absolute Key to Occult Science: The Tarot of the Bohemians, The Most Ancient Book in the World; For the Exclusive Use of Initiates (London: Chapman and Hall, 1892), by Papus, trans. by A. P. Morton
  • illustrated HTML with commentary at sacred-texts.com
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• An Introduction to the Study of the Tarot, by Paul Foster Case (PDF at innerjourneybooks.com)
• The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by Arthur Edward Waite (HTML at sacred-texts.com)
• The Symbolism of the Tarot: Philosophy of Occultism in Pictures and Numbers, by P. D. Uspenskii, trans. by A. L. Pogossky (HTML at sacred-texts.com)
• The Tarot: Its Occult Significance, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play, Etc., by S. L. MacGregor Mathers
  • PDF at innerjourneybooks.com
  • HTML at sacred-texts.com
• The Egyptian Revival: or, The Evercoming Son in the Light of the Tarot, by Frater Achad (HTML at hermetic.com)

• Joe Strong, the Boy Fire-Eater: or, The Most Dangerous Performance on Record, by Vance Barnum (Gutenberg text)

• Annemann's Practical Mental Effects: A Comprehensive Collection of the Best Mental Tricks of Recent Years (second printing; New York et al.: Holden's Magic Shops, 1946), by Theodore Annemann, ed. by John J. Crimmins, illust. by Nelson Hahne (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• Black Herman's Secrets of Magic, Mystery and Legerdermain (15th DeLuxe edition; Dallas: Dorene Pub Co, c1938), by Black Herman (page images at HathiTrust)
• Blackstone's Secrets of Magic (New York and Chicago: A. L. Burt Co., c1929), by Harry Blackstone (page images at HathiTrust)
• Conjuring for Amateurs: A Practical Treatise on How to Perform Modern Tricks (1901), by Ellis Stanyon (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Fireside Magician: or, the Art of Natural Magic Made Easy (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, c1870), by Thomas Picton (page images at HathiTrust)
• Magic: In Which Are Given Clear and Concise Explanations of All the Well-Known Illusions, As Well As Many New Ones (Philadelphia: Penn Pub. Co., 1910), by Ellis Stanyon, contrib. by Henry Ridgely Evans (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Magical Suggestions (London: G. Johnson, 1921), by Harry Latour (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Memorias e Confidencias do Popular Illusionista Faure Nicolay (in Portuguese; Rio De Janeiro: Typ. Villas-Bôas, 1901), by Nicoláu Faure Nicolay
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only
• Sleights: Being a Number of Incidental Effects, Tricks, Sleights, Moves and Passes, For Purposes Ranging From Impromptu to Platform Performances (c1914), by Burling Hull (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Some Modern Conjuring: A Series of Original Experiments in the Magic Art (ca. 1909), by Donald Holmes (multiple formats at archive.org)
• New Juggling Tricks (first series; London: E. Stanyon and co., 1901), by Ellis Stanyon (illustrated HTML at juggling.org)
• Sealed Mysteries: Explaining the Latest Card Mysteries and Spirit Tricks Made Public for the First Time, with Directions for Constructing Trick Cards (Brooklyn, NY: Master Technic Pub. Co., c1911), by Burling Hull
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena (New York: Munn and Co., 1898), by Chung Ling Soo
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Ventriloquism Explained: and Juggler's Tricks, or Legerdemain, Exposed; With Remarks on Vulgar Superstitions, in a Series of Letters to an Instructor (Amherst, MA: J. S. and C. Adams, 1834) (page images at HathiTrust)
• Confidences et Révélations: Comment on Devient Sorcier (in French; Blois: Lecesne, 1868), by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• A Magician's Tour, Up and Down and Round About the Earth: Being the Life and Adventures of the American Nostradamus, Harry Kellar (Chicago: Donohue, Henneberry and Co., 1890), by Harry Kellar (multiple formats at archive.org)

• Hocus Pocus: or, The Whole Art of Legerdemain, in Perfection, By Which the Meanest Capacity May Perform the Whole Without the Help of a Teacher; Together with the Use of All the Instruments Belonging Thereto (11th edition; Philadelphia: Printed for M. Carey, 1795), by Henry Dean (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)

• Automata Old and New (London: Imp. at the Chiswick press, 1893), by Conrad William Cooke (page images at HathiTrust)
• Ueber den Schachspieler des Herrn von Kempelen und Dessen Nachbildung (in German; Leipzig and Dresden: J. G. I. Breitkopf, 1789), by Joseph Friedrich Racknitz (page images at HathiTrust)

• Modern Magicians' Hand Book: An Up-to-Date Treatise on the Art of Conjuring (Chicago: F. J. Drake and Co., c1902), by William J. Hilliar, contrib. by Henry Ridgely Evans (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Secrets of Stage Conjuring (London: G. Routledge and Sons, 1900), by Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, ed. by Professor Hoffmann
  • Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only

• The Lives of the Conjurors (London: Tinsley Bros., 1876), by Thomas Frost (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin (New York: Publishers Printing Co., 1908), by Harry Houdini (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)

• The Keith ABC for Children (Boston: Publicity Department, Keith's Theatre, 1906), by James F. McNally, contrib. by B. F. Keith, illust. by Wallace Goldsmith (page images at Princeton)

• The Sphinx (partial serial archives)
• The Linking Ring (partial serial archives)
• The Magazine of Magic (most volumes 1914-1922 online; US access only), ed. by Will Goldston (partial serial archives)
• Magic (UK-based magician's periodical, 1900-1920; selected issues online 1900-1907; US access only), ed. by Ellis Stanyon (partial serial archives)
• The Magic Wand (partial serial archives)
• The Magical Bulletin, contrib. by F. G. Thayer (partial serial archives)
• M-U-M, by Society of American Magicians (partial serial archives)

• Performing Deception: Learning, Skill and the Art of Conjuring (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, c2022), by Brian Rappert (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)

• The Lasso: A Rational Guide to Trick Roping, by Carey Bunks (HTML at juggling.org)

More items available under narrower terms.