Matthias Buchinger: The Greatest German Living

This deluxe edition chronicles the life of Matthias Buchinger, an eighteenth-century performer from Nuremberg who mastered conjuring, music, calligraphy, and engraving despite being born without hands or feet. Written by Ricky Jay—himself a magician, historian, and collector—the volume draws on years of research and reproduces Buchinger's own artworks, broadsides, and period documents in high-quality facsimile.

The book treats Buchinger as both subject and artist. You see his intricate engravings, his calligraphic work, and the promotional materials that advertised his performances across Europe. Jay's text situates Buchinger within the culture of wonder cabinets, traveling showmen, and the shifting attitudes toward physical difference in the 1700s.

Published by the Conjuring Arts Research Center, this collector's edition is limited to 500 numbered copies. Each includes a signed certificate of authenticity and two commemorative decks of playing cards designed for the release. The production emphasizes archival reproduction: heavy paper stock, careful color matching, and layouts that honor the scale and detail of Buchinger's original pieces.

The narrative avoids hagiography. Jay examines Buchinger's skill as a performer and self-promoter, the economics of touring acts, and the documentary evidence that survives. The book is as much about how we preserve and interpret historical figures as it is about Buchinger himself.

For readers interested in conjuring history, this is primary source material made accessible. For those drawn to calligraphy or engraving, the reproductions show what was possible with quill and burin. For collectors of magic ephemera or limited-edition volumes, the numbered run and accompanying certificates add archival context. The playing cards tie the package back to the tools of the trade, though they function here as keepsakes rather than working decks.

The edition assumes some baseline interest in either the history of magic, the visual culture of the eighteenth century, or bibliophilic production values. It is a research artifact packaged for private libraries, not a coffee-table overview.