The practical illustration of magic tricks often features disembodied hands demonstrating card fans and passes, coin and ball tricks and other methods of using apparatus. Such hands are put to effective use in the gold-stamped cover of this book, first published in 1859 by Dick & Fitzgerald, a publisher of popular works, including many titles on magic.The content of the book was put together by the editor, W.H. Cremer, from a number of American and French conjuring books, particularly The Magician's Own Book (1857), although he claimed the majority of the content was still original.