RATIONAL RECREATIONS IN WHICH THE PRINCIPLES OF NUMBERS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY ARE CLEARLY AND COPIOUSLY ELUCIDATED, BY A SERIES OF EASY, ENTERTAINING, INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS. AMONG WHICH ARE ALL THOSE COMMONLY PERFORMED WITH THE CARDS. by HOOPER, William. HAND COLOURED SET.:

London, printed for E. Law and Son; and G. G. and J. Robinson, 1794.. FOUR VOLUMES, COMPLETE SET 1794. 4th edition corrected. CONTEMPORARY HAND COLOURED SET, 8vo, 220 x 130 mm, 8½ x 5 inches, 65 contemporary hand coloured folding engraved plates, some illustrations in the text, pages: [4], xvi, 1-267; [4], xii, 1-280; [4], xii, 1-296; [4], xvi, 1-367, contemporary tree calf covers, recently rebacked with contrasting gilt lettered labels, gilt decoration and date to spines. Covers slightly stained, rubbed and scuffed, pale age-browning and spotting to pastedowns and endpapers, pale age-browning and spotting to blank margins of most plates, 2 plates have a tiny pale stain in the image, small pale green paint stain to lower margin of page 224 in Vol.3, small neat repair to paper fault in 1 margin, nowhere near text, occasional pale stain or spot, shallow vertical crease affecting most pages due to the folded plates, otherwise a very good set. The contents of each volume are set out on the half-titles which follow the title pages, Volume I: Arithmetical and Mechanical Experiments; Volume II: Experiments in Optics, Chromatics and Acoustics; Volume III: Electrical and Magnetical Experiments; Volume IV: Experiments in Pneumatics, Hydrology, and Pyrotechnics. With an Appendix of Miscellaneous Recreations. This Appendix (pages 175-295), contains the conjuring, magic and card tricks, "Several of the Recreations in this Appendix have, in fact, but little relation to experimental philosophy, especially those that depend on a dextrous manoeuvre; but as experiments of this kind are commonly found in books of mathematical recreations, it seemed requisite to insert some of the most entertaining among them at the end of this treatise" (author's note). See Toole Stott, A Bibliography of English Conjuring 1581-1876, page 137 No. 392; Trevor Hall, Old Conjuring Books. AS Bibliographical and Historical Study , page155; Trevor Hall, A Bibliography of Books on Conjuring in English from 1580 to 1850, pages 56 & 57, Numbers 180-184; Sotheby's, J.B. Findlay Collection Part 1, page 69, No. 334; Clarke and Blind, The Bibliography of Conjuring, page 39: Edgar Heyl, A Contribution to Conjuring Bibliography 1580-1850, page 32, No. 177; Harry Price National Laborartory of Psychical Research, page 223; Jessel and Horr, Bibliographies of Works on Playing Cards and Gaming, page 130, No. 758; For the fireworks section (Vol.IV, pages 127-171), see Chris Philip, A Bibliography of Firework Books, page 73, No. H110. 2-5. Philip points out that Hooper states that much of this work stems from Guyot (Nouvelles Recreations Physiques et Mathematiques - 1786): "We shall here add the description of a new method of imitating artificial fireworks, which appears to be the invention of the ingenious M. Guyot" (Vol. IV page 156). MORE IMAGES ATTACHED TO THIS LISTING, ALL ZOOMABLE, FURTHER IMAGES ON REQUEST. POSTAGE AT COST.