Decremps - Les petites aventures de Jérôme Sharp - 1789

Magic art, scientific experiments, and entertaining adventures united in an illustrated 18th-century work: Henri Decremps leads his readers into a world of astonishing tricks, optical illusions and mechanical secrets—with an engraved frontispiece and 17 wood-engraved cuts.

Decremps, Henri. Les petites aventures de Jérôme Sharp, professeur de physique amusante; ouvrage contenant autant de tours ingénieux que de leçons utiles, avec quelques petits portraits à la manière noire.

Brussels, Veuve Dujardin, and Paris, Defer de Maisonneuve, 1789. 386 pages. With engraved frontispiece and 17 Textholzschnitten. Later half-leather binding with a gold-embossed spine plate and marbled covers. 22 x 14 cm
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Henri Decremps (1746–1826) was among the pioneers of modern literature on conjuring and scientific entertainment. He became famous especially for his work La Magie blanche dévoilée, in which he traced the allegedly wondrous feats of contemporary magicians to natural, technical, and psychological causes. The Petite aventures de Jérôme Sharp first appeared in 1785 and form a self-contained readable continuation of this successful series.

The focus is the wandering Professor Jérôme Sharp, who on his travels through France, with sharpness, scientific knowledge, and deft deception, encounters a wide variety of adventures. The plot leads the reader through a colorful world of fairground artists, swindlers, scholars, and curious onlookers. Numerous tricks and experiments are explained, including optical illusions, surprising color changes, mathematical games, and demonstrations of physics.

Particularly appealing is the combination of entertaining narrative and practically verifiable experiments. The woodcuts depict among other things optical apparatus, mirror arrangements, and physical experiments. The work thus offers a vivid impression of the entertainment culture immediately before the French Revolution and is of interest to collectors of historical magical literature, early technology history, and scientific curiosities.
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Binding lightly rubbed. Interior somewhat stained, title page and engraved frontispiece worn at the lower corners. Old library stamp on the flyleaf. Overall a well-preserved copy of this illustrated classic of historical conjuring.