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The arts of deception : playing with fraud in the age of Barnum / James W. Cook.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Cook, James W., 1966-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Popular culture--United States--History--19th century.
- Popular culture.
- Robots.
- History.
- Magic tricks.
- Trompe l'oeil painting.
- Impostors and imposture.
- Tricksters.
- Fraud.
- Social aspects.
- United States.
- Fraud--Social aspects--United States--History--19th century.
- Tricksters--United States--History--19th century.
- Impostors and imposture--United States--History--19th century.
- United States--Social life and customs--19th century.
- Manners and customs.
- Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891.
- Barnum, P. T.
- Trompe l'oeil painting--United States--History--19th century.
- Magic tricks--United States--History--19th century.
- Robots--United States--History--19th century.
- Physical Description:
- xv, 314 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2001.
- Summary:
- Ingenious automatons which appeared to think on their own. Dubious mermaids and wild men who resisted classification. Elegant sleight-of-hand artists who routinely exposed the secrets of their trade. These were some of the playful forms of fraud which astonished, titillated, and even outraged nineteenth-century America's new middle class, producing some of the most remarkable urban spectacles of the century.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [269]-308) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0674004574
- 0674005910
- OCLC:
- 45532418
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