Secrets of the Hand-cuff Trick. Also an Expose of the Famous Needle Trick, with a Short Article on Hypnotism as Practised on the Stage To-day (Title from Front Wrap)

Boston: Mutual Book Company, Publishers, Booksellers, 1907. First Edition. Very good. First edition; 6 x 3 3/4; pp. [1], 4-31; beige wraps, ruled and printed in black and decorated with a small vignette; illustrated with numerous photographs; a few minor spots to margins of wraps and a tiny nick to fore-edge of front wrap; a small cut to top edge of back wrap, along spine; in very good- condition.An uncommon, amusing, and frankly bizarre little book (OCLC lists 3 institutional holdings with none in the trade at time of cataloging), it began with a richly-illustrated with photos chapter on the famous handcuff trick, "...here revealed for the first time." It also explained "The Needle Trick," assuring the reader it was easily-accomplishable with very little practice and "only" involved placing of 10 needles in one's mouth. The truly-outlandish sections instructed on how to hypnotise, how to make a subject fall backward, how to produce sleep, how to make a subject forget his name, etc.