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This reproduction of W. H. J. Shaw's 1902 booklet, New Ideas in Magic, Illusions, Spiritualistic Effects, Etc., includes detailed instructions on how to create such illusions as the three-legged woman, the four-legged woman, the half-lady, decapitation on the guillotine, and a talking severed head. Plus handkerchief magic, card tricks, mentalist feats, and chapeaugraphy.

Originally published in 1839, this humorous manual will teach you how to become a successful swindler and explain why you should be one. It claims to be written by Captain Barabbas Whitefeather and edited by John Jackdaw-pseudonyms for Douglas William Jerrold. This reproduction (featuring an original ad from 1839) is reasonably priced, because we at Curious Publications do not endorse swindling.

At the time of this book's original publication in 1897, millions of Americans believed in Spiritualism. That is to say, they believed they could communicate with the dead. We humans could survive death and spirits were real. Andrew Lang's The Book of Dreams and Ghosts shares roughly a hundred stories spanning the two preceding centuries. As Lang states in his preface, "The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected." More than 125 years later, may these unusual tales entertain you as well.

Have you ever seen a ghost? Now you can see them in the comfort of your own home. In 1864, when J. H. Brown's Spectropia was first published, beliefs in spirits were reaching a high point. Mediums across the country were selling the idea of communication with the afterlife. And people were buying it. With the Civil War raging, death was plaguing America and grieving families were willing to cling to any hope of reconnecting with lost loved ones.As séances conjured up spirits through rappings on walls, levitating tables, mysterious images in photographs, and other fantastic appearances, Brown decided to do something about it. He had had enough of "the absurd follies of spiritualism." As Brown notes in the pages of this book, "All the senses are more or less subject to deception, but the eye is pre-eminently so." With the sixteen color plates in Spectropia, he created a way for anyone to see ghosts through nothing more than science.Follow Brown's simple instructions and the spectres within these pages will take shape in your newly haunted house. Only for a short time though, after which they will vanish beyond the veil.This new edition republishes the original text and illustrations in FULL COLOR, and includes a foreword by author and founder of WeirdHistorian.com, Marc Hartzman. ABCnews.com has called him "one of America's leading connoisseurs of the bizarre."

Oliver Cromwell led the charge in the beheading of England's King Charles I in 1649. But little did he know that his own head would soon roll. And roll and roll-for the next three hundred years across the Commonwealth. The execution of Charles I ended the monarchy, and Cromwell became the Lord Protector of England until his own death from natural causes in 1658. His body was embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey, only to be exhumed by King Charles II three years later. The new king had restored the monarchy and wished to avenge his father's death by hanging Cromwell and beheading him posthumously. Now, for the first time, the memoirs of Oliver Cromwell's embalmed head have surfaced, making it the first account of any world leader-or any human being for that matter-chronicling the afterlife. This remarkable memoir recounts its journey through the centuries, beginning with Cromwell's decapitation and the head's impalement on a post at Westminster Hall, where it stayed for more than twenty years before being freed by a heavy storm. Over the centuries, the head enjoyed a series of unexpected adventures, encountering a host of bizarre and well-known characters-from its many owners, curious anatomists and misled but obsessed phrenologists to other preserved decapitated heads and impostor Cromwell heads. These escapades came to an end only after the head was donated to Cromwell's alma mater, Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, where it was eventually buried for good in 1960.