The Art of Amusing / Being a Collection of Graceful Arts, Merry Games, Odd Tricks, Curious Puzzles, and New Charades. Together with Suggestions for Private Theatricals, Tableaux, and All Sorts of Parlor and Family Amusements.

A compendium of Victorian parlor entertainments offers step-by-step instructions, humorous sketches, puzzles, charades, conjuring tricks, homemade toys and simple stage effects for private theatricals and family gatherings. Chapters provide directions for card and coin tricks, optical illusions, paper transparencies, tableaux, miniature scenes, riddles and arithmetic puzzles, plus recipes for colored fires, stage storms, and practical jokes. Interspersed are comic sketches and short theatrical pieces for amateur performers, with numerous illustrations accompanying hands-on projects like fruit animals, paper ornaments, and ventriloquism bits. Practical, playful, and entertaining, the material is organized for easy use at parlor parties, children's gatherings, and informal social diversions.