That Devil's Trick is the first study of nineteenth-century hypnotism based primarily on the popular - rather than medical - appreciation of the subject. Drawing on the reports of mesmerists, hypnotists, quack doctors and serious physicians printed in popular newspapers from the early years of the nineteenth century to the Victorian fin de siecle, the book provides an insight into how Continental mesmerism was first understood in Britain, how a number of distinctively British varieties of mesmerism developed, and how these were continually debated in medical, moral and legal terms.
This...