Price £7.50 (£5.00 to MLS members)
The Incomparable Testot!: Selections from a 19th Century Magician’s Paragraph Book
Hastings: The Projection Box, 2005
ISBN 978-1903000-08-3
36 pages, 67 illustrations, paperback, 21 x 29.7cm
From the 1820s to the 1840s the halls and theatres of Britain were visited by the French magician Felix Testot, with his ‘Magical Illusions and Optical Delights’. His act variously included ‘the Irish Giant’ and ‘Monsieur Louis: the French Hercules’. Later he was joined by his son, a proficient violinist and juggler. Testot delighted audiences with ‘The Dancing and Speaking Money’, the famous Gun Trick and ‘The Transformation of a Bird to a Child Growing into a Lady’.
For 20 years, with the resilience characteristic of the profession, Felix Testot and his family continued to take their wonders to provincial towns. The newspaper clippings in this compilation have been selected from the magician’s own Paragraph Book, by courtesy of the Testo family and the National Fairground and Circus Archive, University of Sheffield.
With an Introduction by Professor Eddie Dawes, the world’s leading historian of magic.