| Description |
ix, 343 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), portraits (some color) ; 29 cm |
| Contents |
1. Harry Kahne: the multiple mental marvel -- 2. Porcine prophets and pig-faced ladies -- 3. Attenuation as art: Willard, the man who grows -- 4. More than the sum of their parts: Matthew Buchinger, Sarah Biffin, and other anomalies of nature... -- 5. Blind Tom -- 6. Max Malini: the last of the mountebanks -- 7. Datas: the man who knew too much -- 8. Equine amusements -- 9. Genius or charlatan? Walford Bodie, M.D. -- 10. Born to a drier death than diving: Samuel Gilbert Scott and other daredevils -- 11. A few words about death and show biz: Washington Irving Bishop, J. Randall Brown, and the origins of modern mind reading -- 12. Laroche: the Sisyphus of the circus world -- 13. Arthur Lloyd: the humorous human card index -- 14. Enterology: getting into boxes, bottles, and trouble with Seamus Burke and others -- 15. Incombustible men and fireproof women -- 16. Stones, swords, snakes, and other entrées -- 17. Le Pétomane: the end |
| Notes |
Includes index |
|
Originally published: New York : Villard, 1986 |
|
Unusual public entertainments,. to 1986 (BNB/PRECIS) |
| Bibliography |
Includes index |
| Subject |
Amusements -- History.
|
| LC no. |
bnb70903150 |
| ISBN |
0709031505 |
|
