The Annals of Conjuring, by Sidney W. Clarke

Description

This is quite a substantial hardback book, and one full of fascinating information from the ancient origins of the magical arts…

Preface:

This volume is reproduced from the original copies in my library on loan to the publisher who is my friend in Magic. It is my hope that this outstanding history of magic will be as useful and inspiring to future generations of magicians as it has been for me. Magical posterity owes the publisher a debt of gratitude for bearing the risk of again making available a work which has been unavailable to lovers of magic for far too many years.

John Henry Grossman M.D., M.I.M.C.
Hon. Life Pres. Magic Collector’s Assoc.
Member Magic Hall of Fame
Copyright @ 1983 by
Magico Magazine
P.O.B. 156
NYC 10002
All Rights Reserved

Included in the pictures is a view of the Introduction, as transcribed here:

The purpose of this work is to describe the beginnings, progress and modern developments of that branch of the art of entertaining which is specially concerned with the marvels wrought for the amusement of the public by the class of performers that it is the fashion to refer to as Conjurers, Prestidigitators, Illusionists, Wizards, Necromancers and Magicians. This use of the word conjurer is modern. When Nathan Bailey published the first great dictionary of the English language in 1721 he defined a conjurer as “one who is supposed to practise the vile arts of raising spirits and conferring with the ‘Devil,” and it was in that sense, and that sense alone, that the words conjure, conjuring and conjurer, were used up to the later half of the Eighteenth century; and, further, until quite recently such words as magic, magician, necromancer and wizard, were never applied to a conjuring entertainment or entertainer.

This book measures approximately 220 x 150 x 50mm (8 ⁵⁄₈ x 5 ⁷⁄₈ x 2″)