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Telling fortunes with playing cards

[BOHEMILLON, P.B.].
Beknopte handleiding tot de kunst van het kaartleggen, of aanwyzing om door middel van zesendertig speelkaarten iemants horoscoop te trekken. Uit het Fransch vertaald. Tweede druk.
Amsterdam, P.G. and N. Geysbeek, [ca. 1810]. 8vo. With letterpress folding table. Original publisher's printed stiff paper wrappers. 152, [4] pp.
€ 850
Only copy located of the second edition of a very rare manual explaining how to tell fortunes using 36 playing cards. It contains detailed descriptions of the meaning of each card, together with the interpretation of all the combinations. Telling one's fortune from cards was a very popular pastime at winter. A preface by the publisher assures people that educated and religious people do play the game as well.
According to the title-page it is a translation from the French. The first editions were published by Geysbeek, followed by later editions by Moolenyzer, who started the numbering of the editions anew and added the fictitious name P.B. Bohemillon.
Only some faint thumbing and a minor stain in the fore-edge margin of the first two leaves, but otherwise in very good condition. Both ends of the spine missing, affecting the first two letters of the letterpress spine title, but the sides still good. Cf. NCC (4 copies in total of 1st, 3rd & 4th eds.); Saakes IV (1807), p. 306 (1st ed); Waller 672-673 (2 Moolenyzer editions).
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