Friday 23 November 2018 – Charles Dickens Conjurer: The story of Charles Dickens as a magician told through one of his playbills.

Amongst his other skills Charles Dickens was an accomplished conjurer, calling himself The Unparalleled Necromancer.We know this from a playbill that Dickens wrote for a show he did on the Isle of Wight.Playbills were the principal means of advertising entertainment in the 19th century, capturing the public’s imagination with their exaggerated wording. In this talk Dickens’s own playbill is brought to life by reference to their historical development through various amusing animal acts, contemporary conjurors that directly influenced him and some demonstrations of legerdemain which the great man himself actually performed. And all presented by professional magician and author of Charles Dickens Magician: Conjuring in Life, Letters & Literature.