Here Ricky Jay -- magician, actor, archivist -- leads the reader through an awe-inspiring pantheon of entertainers plucked lovingly from antiquity. This volume collects 16 issues of Jay's original Journal, each concerning a different historical example of a popular entertainer who made his/her/its living through some kind of oddity or chicanery, and each magnificently illustrated with printed artifacts from the time. We meet Monetto, the time-telling dog, as well as Signor Hervio Nano (aka Henry Leach), the "gnome fly," who was able to walk on ceilings. The flea circus, human levitation, dentist magicians -- all your favorites are here. And if they're not, judging by Jay's prodigous body of knowledge, you might just find them in his other book, Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women.

Harold Check