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Breslaw's Last Legacy
Breslaw's Last Legacy; Or the Magical Companion: Containing All that is Curious, Pleasing, Entertaining, and Comical; ... Including the Various Exhibitions of Those Wonderful Artists: Breslaw, Sieur Comus, Jonas, &c. ... With an Accurate Description of the Method how to Make the Air Balloon ... was a book inspired by Philip Breslaw and published in 1784.
| Breslaw's Last Legacy | |
| Author | Philip Breslaw |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 1784 |
| Language | English |
Based on the number of editions published, Breslaw's Last Legacy ranks as one of the most popular antiquarian magic books published in English.
Items described include bringing a dead fly back to life, making your companions appear hideous, pulling off a person's shirt without undressing him and making a selected card jump out of the pack.
"Breslaw may have compiled the eighteenth-century editions ... It is clear, however, that he was not responsible for the many small pamphlets of the same title published in the early nineteenth century." -- Trevor Hall in Old Conjuring Books.
Editions
- First edition (1784)
- Second edition (1784)
- Fifth edition London, W. Lane (1791)
- Breslaw's Last Legacy: Or, the Conjuror Unmasked, with Great Additions and Improvements (1792)
- Sixth edition Dublin, J. Rice, (1793)
- The twelfth edition, with great additions and improvements printed for J. Barker; and sold by B. Crosby (1794)
- American Edition in Philadelphia (1811) (Making it the fourth American book devoted to magic)
- A facsimile of the 1795 edition with new forward by Byron Walker (1997)