William De Lisle
I have a very good library of juggling books, including many volumes that are quite old. Recently I acquired a copy of an extremely rare book that was published by Edward Van Wyck in 1910. It is The Art of Juggling by William De Lisle.
The book serves as both an instructional guide as well as an advertisement for Van Wyck’s products. It should be noted that this book actually gives proper instructions of the art of spinning objects on a parasol / umbrella. Nearly all other old juggling books include the ball on parasol / umbrella trick, but instruct that it must be done using an invisible thread that attaches the ball to the center top of the parasol. Apparently most Western jugglers thought that Japanese jugglers were using gimmicks or were too lazy to learn the actual trick! De Lisle and Van Wyck knew better, though. I hope you find this book interesting, as it gives us good insight to what jugglers were performing a little over a hundred years ago.
David Cain
David Cain is a professional juggler, juggling historian, and the owner of the world's only juggling museum, the Museum of Juggling History. He is a Guinness world record holder and 16 time IJA gold medalist. In addition to his juggling pursuits, David is a successful composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and singer as well as the author of twenty-six books. He and his children live in Middletown, OH (USA).
Comments 1
That book looks great.