Tresor des Jeux

La Haye [The Hague]: Pierre Gosse, Junior, 1759. Very Good. La Haye [The Hague]: Pierre Gosse, Junior, 1759. 12mo (17cm.); full contemporary calf, gilt spine in six compartments with printed paper spine label, all edges stained red; xxi,[1],141,[1]pp.; fourteen leaves of engraved folding plates (lacking final blank, otherwise collated complete). Leather a bit scuffed with small loss at spine crown and a few scars to upper cover, boards bowed, spine label starting to peel away, else a Very Good, internally clean and sound copy.

Exceptionally rare manual to all things sleight-of-hand, including magic tricks and card tricks, generously adorned with engravings for easy learning. The written instructions are not always terribly useful, however. For example, the trick called the Laying Hen ("La Poule qui pond") promises to be very simple: just put a dozen eggs up your sleeve, show the audience your empty sack, and then slip the eggs into the sack one by one while pretending to rummage inside.

OCLC notes two imprint variations of this title, the present La Haye imprint and a Geneva imprint, published by Henri-Albert Gosse. Both versions are rare, with no copies in North America of the La Haye imprint as of March, 2025. The Geneva imprint can be found at Indiana and the Cleveland Public Library.

Clarke & Blind p. 8.