This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/9/2023
ROBINSON, W.E. (1861 - 1918) Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena. New York: Munn & Company, 1898. Publisher’s gilt-lettered dark red cloth decorated in black. Frontispiece depicting a scene from the Blue Room illusion titled “The Spiritualistic Seance.” Illustrated with line drawings and plates. Hamley ad sheet tipped in at rear; Hamley overslip to title page. Cloth rubbed at extremities and joints, faint foxing, short tear in gutter of frontis.; good to very good. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED on the title page, “Sincerely Yours / Chung Ling Soo / [three Chinese characters]” and SIGNED AGAIN below in his given name, “W.E. Robinson.”
Many of the secrets divulged in this work were used by Robinson (who found his greatest success as the “Chinese Conjurer,” Chung Ling Soo) in seances he conducted at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, and later while in the employ of Harry Kellar and Alexander Herrmann. Robinson also worked closely with Munn, publishers of Scientific American, to reveal the secrets behind many famous stage illusions in the now-classic tome Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions by Albert Hopkins (1897). Signed examples of Robinson’s book are scarce, and this is the first we have encountered signed with both his Christian name, and as Chung Ling Soo.