A quirky little book that I had no idea was a reprint of a book originally published in 1894 until I started reading it.

While it was interesting, as a history in a way, of magic tricks used at the time, and the explanations for them, I found it a wee bit outdated (naturally).

Full of 'parlor tricks' including such topics as gravity, hydraulics, and electricity. Magical Experiments is an entertaining read full of creative ideas.

While I don't think I'll be trying out any of the tricks myself, I certainly enjoyed reading about them!

This is a reprint from a book originally published in 1894. It was a book that took parlor tricks and gave scientific explanations how they worked. Some of the explanations deal with electricity, surface tension, air pressure, gravity,and more. Kids and adults interested in magic will enjoy this book as a history. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A republication of the 1894 book of magical experiments; scientific amusement to entertain and instruct.
In this collection there are a large variety of "party trick" illusions including ones around the subjects of gravity, pressure, capillarity, superficial tension, hydraulics, centrifugal force, electricity and acoustics just to name a few.
It's definitely an entertaining read with lots of creative ideas from miniature steamships to cannons, javelins and cutting glass, with instructions and illustrations to go along throughout the book.
Even without the intention of doing them, you can learn a lot and enjoy a couple laughs too.

Magical Experiments is an unabridged reformatting and republication of a science manual for young people from 1894. Originally published as Magical Experiments, or Science in Play , this edition due out 12th June 2019 from Dover is 336 pages and will be available in paperback format.

For anyone who has read through the Dover catalogue (all of us at one point or another) and thought "Wow, there's an audience for obscure 14th century Danish textile arts!?" (some of us at one point or another) and marveled that Dover is out there guarding and shepherding this great ship of ephemera, history, vitally important information, and weirdness... Here's another good one.

Author Arthur Good was a French engineer, DIY guru, and layman scientist who wrote a weekly column syndicated for publication and was, apparently, something of a 19th Century Bill Nye, the Science Guy. This book is a collection of some of those posts and will teach the reader how to pierce a coin with a needle, balance eggs on the neck of a bottle, spin a plate balanced on a needle, and lots more tricks guaranteed to have parents everywhere covering their eyes (and probably yelling 'What WERE you thinking?!').

For me, probably the best part of the entire book is the engraved illustrations which accompany each experiment. They're sort of surreal compositions with knives and forks balanced from corks in gravity defying positions.

Really cool and fun experiments. Many of these are almost in the nature of 'bar tricks'. The science of -why- they work isn't really explained; for all I know physicists and chemists of the day might have been somewhat hazy on the theoretical basis of why.

Five stars. Worthwhile. Five perennial stars for Dover, long may they reign.