Endless Amusement promises ‘nearly 400 entertaining experiments’ and delivers a Regency cabinet of scientific play: chemical transformations, optical tricks, electrical sparks, fireworks and arithmetical legerdemain, gathered for the family parlour when science was the best show in the house. Young David Copperfield readers may recognise the genre; young Michael Faraday actually learned from books like this.
Some experiments would horrify a modern safety officer, which is part of the historical charm. Download the free EPUB — for reading, and perhaps not entirely for doing.