This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/17/2024
[MASKELYNE’S BOX TRICK]. [Maskelyne Box Trick Trial Documents.] (London: The Solicitors’ Law Stationery Society, Limited), [1899]. Marbled boards with printed paper title label to upper, roan spine gilt lettered. Tab-cut pages breaking the document into five sections: “Petition & Appeal,” “Appellant’s Case,” “Respondent’s Case,” “Appendix,” “Respondent’s Additional Documents.” The whole chronicles the dispute between Maskelyne and two respondents, Stollery and Evans, who attempted to claim Maskelyne’s prize after being able to apparently explain and duplicate his famous Box Trick. 100pp. 4to. Spine chipped and rubbed, boards a bit rubbed, old ink ownership signature to pastedown. With a contemporary newspaper account of the trial laid in. RARE; the only example with which we are acquainted.
A fascinating and officially issued account of the famous trial at which J.N. Maskelyne defended his £1,000 challenge to anyone who could: “1) Discover the secret of my Box trick; and 2) Produce a box … [and] show that it will stand the same tests of examination and securing to which I shall submit my own box ….” The book includes fascinating testimony from the original trial and appeal process.