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The Art of Jugling or Legerdemaine Preface |
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The Art of Jugling or Legerdemaine appeared as a pamphlet in 1612, with a reprint in 1614. It followed the extensive sleight-of-hand descriptions in Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft, first published in 1584 and reissued regularly for decades thereafter. (By the way, at the time jugling was another term for magic.)
The popularity of Scot’s large book may have suggested the possibility of a smaller work devoted solely to magic techniques. Many of the effects in The Art of Jugling are in fact taken directly from Scot’s text, though two notable exceptions are the still-popular three-ball routine and an early use of specially printed cards in the Kings-to-Aces-to-blanks effect.
No one knows who wrote The Art of Jugling or Legerdemaine. Its author signed his introduction as “Sa. Rid.,” which could be an abbreviation for “Sanford Ridgely,” “Samuel Ridley,” or many other possible names. Because the publisher is named Samuel Rand, “Rid.” may simply be a misprint of “Rnd.” Whatever the case, the same “Sa. Rid.,” as magic bibliophile Edgar Heyl convincingly argued in his Cues for Collectors (1964), seems to also have been the author of the 1610 work Martin Mark-All, the Beadle of Bridewell.
Like Scot’s book and other sources of the time, The Art of Jugling mentions magic performances by Gypsies, who carried these effects and techniques around the continent. Caught in print, the routines of both the itinerant performer and the English magician are preserved here in the midst of their evolution into more elaborate shows.
Small props and sleights dominated the repertoire of the day, and books like The Art of Jugling allowed readers to learn these portable and inexpensive effects. Such pamphlets helped popularize the art of magic, bringing the public of the enjoyment of both presenting and watching magic, and hopefully inspiring a new generation of even more ambitious performers.
— Todd Karr