This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
SECUNDUS, Merlin (pseud.) The Veritable Black Art. New York: Advance Publishing Co., (1875). Plain brown-black cloth. Wood-engraved frontispiece of a ghost terrorizing a man holding a pistol. Illustrated. 8vo. Hinges weak, dampstains, soiling, cloth rubbed and chipped; good to fair. Not in Toole Stott and apparently unrecorded elsewhere, though later pulp editions have been recorded. A curious treatise that explains alchemy, magic, astrology, fortune-telling, and phrenology. It also exposes the tricks of the Davenport Brothers, illustrates the method behind Pepper’s Ghost and magic lanterns, as well as other tricks.