Selected images from a massive late 19th century tome entitled simply Magic, subtitled Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, including Trick Photography, compiled and edited by Albert A. Hopkins. The book takes a thorough tour through the popular magic tricks and illusions of the day, including along the way many delightfully surreal diagrams and illustrations, the top pick of which we've included here - often especially great when seen out of context. Towards the end are some particularly great "decapitation" trick photographs.

See the book, with explanatory text and many more illustrations over in our post in the Texts collection.