Techniques of Illusion

A Cultural and Media History of Stage Magic in the Late Nineteenth Century

First published:
21st century
Language: English

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Description

This book explores stage conjuring during its “Golden Age”, from 1860 to 1910. This study provides close readings highlighting four paradigmatic illusions of the time that stand in for different kinds of illusions typical of stage magic in the “Golden Age” and analyses them within their cultural and media-historical context: “Pepper’s Ghost”, the archetypical mirror illusion; “The Vanishing Lady”, staging a teleportation in a time of a dizzying acceleration of transport; “the levitation”, simulating weightlessness with the help of an extended steel machinery; and “The Second Sigh”, a mind-reading illusion using up-to-date communication technologies. These close readings are completed by writings focusing on visual media and expanding the scope backwards and forwards in time, roughly to 1800 and to 2000. This exploration will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Ghosts, hauntings, and poltergeists and Ritual magic and grimoires.

Ritual magic and grimoires
Retained metadata contains “Magic” in the subtitle, “Magic” in the description, “Magic” in the subject metadata, and 1 additional metadata match(es).
- “Magic”· in subtitle
- “Magic”· in description
- “Magic”· in subject
- “Magic”· in edition subtitle
Ghosts, hauntings, and poltergeists
Controlled discovery queries from oapen matched “ghosts”. Retained metadata contains “ghost” in the description.
- “ghosts”· via OAPEN Library
- “ghost”· in description

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Editions

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Edition	Date	Publisher	Language	ISBN	Access	Links
A Cultural and Media History of Stage Magic in the Late Nineteenth Century OAPEN Library open-access edition	2023	Routledge; Taylor & Francis	English	—	Open access	OAPEN Library (opens in a new tab)