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March 14, 2025 Public release.

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April 7, 2025 Public release.

Dream Books for Divination and Playing the Numbers Bibliography is copyright 2024 by the Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology (Y.I.P.P.I.E.), and all rights are reserved. In other words, you may download The Dream Books Bibliography and print it out at home for your own use, but you may not further copy it, because the copyright holder controls the copying rights. Specifically, you may not mirror The Dream Book Bibliography to other web sites, you may not distribute it or publish it in print form (either for money or for free), and you may not electronically distribute it in e-lists, electronic forums, social media groups, or usenet (either for money or for free) without the express written permission of the copyright holder.

Thanks to my Patreon Supporters

This online bibliography began as a once-a week scan-catalogue-and-post project for social media, but moving it to a web site is a permanent way to house and display the collection. The number of dream books shown here will grow, while the stacked plastic containers of dream books on the floor of my bedroom will shrink and be moved aside. to make room for more. I undertook this lengthy task because it gives me a chance to go through my collection and select the books with the prettiest covers for folks to view -- but don't kid yourself that this bibliography will ever be complete. I simply have too many dream books for that.

Compiler's Notes on the Contents of This Bibliography:

Books are listed alphabetically by author's surname, but if an author has more than one title, the books for that author are in chronological order by publication date.

Dream Book Bibliography Part One

Dream Book Bibliography Part Two

For more information on how lucky dream numbers are used for lottery lay, click this link to read a brief article i wrote in 1996 about the game of Policy for "Hoodoo in Theory and Practice" by cat yronwode:

"Policy Players' Dream Books" by cat yronwode

The URL you are reading it at now is TEMPORARY. I will write several more parts to this bibliography for my Patrons on individual pages like this, and these will open to the public after one year, thanks to your kind financial support. I will compile all of the pages into one long page and unveil it to the public, with a new URL, at the Yronwode.org home page.

BOOK TITLES

[Anonymous] "A Dictionary of 1000 Dreams" Probably most-often-reprinted dream book of all time; this edition was copyright and published by Max Stein of Chicago in 1941 It is a facsimile of text that was first set in the late 19th or very early 20th century.

[Anonymous] [As by "Ali Baba."] "Ali Baba's Mystic Dream Book [cover.] "What Your Dream Meant: A Complete Dictionary of Dreams and Their Meanings" [title page.] Regan Publishing Corporation, 77 W. Washington St., Chico, Illinois. Paper wraps ("Regan Hand-Book Series"), 96 actual pages, with an unusual pagination scheme, explained below. Undated, but after 1922. Page 1 is the title page, and right out of the box we can see that this is a re-covered variant of the book "What Your Dream Meant." Page 2, the indicia, is blank, with no copyright notice or date. From pages 3 through 86 there are dream interpretations, each accompanied by lottery numbers of 1 or 2 digits, either singular or in groups of 2, 3, or 4 numbers. The dreams are older than the publication, for although the typesetting is 20th century, we have no entry for automobile or car or truck, but we do have entries for carriage, cart, stage-coach, and railroad, and several entries that mention horses and horseback riding. There are no pre-Civil War entries (such as the tell-tale "slave"), but also no 20th century entries, such as cinema, movies, or talking pictures. The entries have a distinctly British cast to them, with interpretations for gibbet and yeoman, and mention of "a pretty chambermaid or milkmaid." What should have been page 87 is, surprisingly, numbered as page 3, and from there to the end, the pages are all advertisements for books, taken from a larger catalogue, for they are numbered 3, 9, 12, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 32. Each page deals with a different topic, as follows: Page 3 [page 87] is a grouping of books on astrology, Spiritualism, and mediumship by Mrs. Cecil Cook and Lloyd Kenyon Jones. Cook and Jones were located in Chicago, and i own these books, all of them circa 1902-1903, with subsequent reprints. Page 9 [page 88] offers books on mathematics and an encyclopedia of gasoline engines. The latter is said to contain an updated supplement on "The Ford and Packard automobiles," which gives us a date of "after 1903" (Packard's first car came out in 1899, Ford's first was in 1903). Page 12 [page 89] offers history, genetics, opium addiction, and critiques of the trusts (large corporations). Page 14 [page 90] continues the trust-busting journalism, listing 18 books by the muck-raking journalist and political novelist Upton Sinclair (and all highly recommended by the present bibliographer!). The titles range from "The Jungle" (1906) through "The Fasting Cure" (1911) and "King Coal" (1917) to "They Call Me Carpenter: A Tale of the Second Coming" (1922). Page 15 [page 91] compiles a set of dictionaries and Bibles. Page 20 [page 92] is titled "Business Betterment Books" and is aimed at salesmen and accountants. Page 21 [page 93] is "Dreams, Fortune Telling, Recitations, Humor" and starts with "What your Dream Meant" (the book that this is, with a re-made cover) for 35 cents, followed by "Ali Baba's Mystic Dream Book" (this very book!) for 25 cents, and "Ali Baba's Fortune Teller" (contents unknown) for 25 cents. Also in this group is "Albertus Magnus." Page 22 [page 94] provides the promised recitations and humor -- both patriotic and in various dialects, as was the style of the time. Page 23 [page 95] is a grab-bag of stage plays for young performers, books on crystal gazing, and actual glass crystal balls "imported from Czecho-Slovakia," a nation that came into existence in 1918. Page 32 [Page 96] is unexpected for a publisher in Chicago -- it offers four books about California, including a biography of the outlaw Joaquin Murietta, in a limited edition of 1,000 copies "printed on hand-made paper." (This is self-stated to be a translation from Spanish, and it is thus probably a version of the fictionalized 1854 biography of Murietta by the Cherokee author John Rollin Ridge ("Yellow Bird") which had indeed been translated into Spanish but had fallen out of print in English after Ridge, the first editor of the Sacramento Bee newspaper, died in 1867 in Grass Valley, California.) Also on this page is a listing for "A California Cook Book," which, oddly enough, happens to have first been catalogued by my mother, Liselotte Glozer, in her ground-breaking bibliography, "California in the Kitchen" (Glozer's Booksellers, Berkeley, California, 1960). In the book world, "A California Cook Book" is known as "Glozer 347." I helped my mother with that bibliographic project and i remember this cook book well, with its sweet Art Nouveau cover of a slender young woman improbably holding a soup ladle among the blooming tulips, and its startling chapter on "Favorite Kosher Dishes," contributed by San Francisco Jewish matrons, whom my mother identified as some of our not-so-distant relatives. Once catalogued and published, the "Glozer Collection" of early California cook books was sold to UCLA, where i hope it still resides in the Department of Special Collections. It was my mother's cheerfully literary approach to compiling bibliographies that you, dear reader, may be enjoying even now, and it was her scrupulous librarianship that led her to take the time to date-range undated books by observing their type fonts and dating the advertisements they included. And that, of course, allows me to assign to "Ali Baba's Mystic Dream Book" a date of "after 1922 ... but not by very much." Let's call it "circa 1923, from a pre-1900 text."

[Anonymous] The "Egyptian Dream Book" Foster-Milburn Co., Buffalo, New York, n.d., but circa 1902, per dated testimonials. 32 pages. The booklet is beautifully illustrated with a list of dreams and their meanings as omens on every left-side page and customer testimonials regarding the medicines on every right-side page. The cover, when opened flat, depicts a fully-clothed young woman asleep on a sandy beach, dreaming that she is in ancient Egypt as a swallow brings her a letter and a string quartet of winged female angels serenades her from the clouds. Foster-Milburn was a well-known and highly respected manufacturer of herb-based over-the-counter remedies that were widely sold in pharmacies in Anglophone nations from the late 19th to the mid 20th centuries. Their product line included Doan's Kidney Pills (a diuretic based on the old Quaker formula of Aunt Mary Rogers which was first sold to the public at James Doan's drug store in Kingsville, Ontario, Canada), Dr. Wood's Norway Pine Syrup (a cough syrup and expectorant), Doan's Ointment (a vulnary antibiotic skin ointment for scrapes, cuts, and insect bites), Burdock Blood Bitters (a bitter tonic with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties), Dr. Fowler's Extract of Wild Strawberry (for diarrhoea and other temporary bowel disturbances), and Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil (an analgesic liniment for strains, sprains, muscle aches, and insect bites). Founded in Canada, the company also had factories in the United States, England, and Australia at the time of this publication. (And by the way, "Eclectric" is not a typo for electric or eclectic -- it is a trademark, and a very clever one at that.)

[Anonymous] The "Ethiopian Dream Book" Keystone News Services of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania A rare booklet. The extensive instructional material on crystal gazing is entirely in English, but that tiny subscript -- "Polish Edition" is not a hoax, for the entire core of the book-- the dream interpretations -- is indeed written in the Polish language. The style of the art places it at the latter end of the era from 1870 to 1930, when about 700,000 Poles came to work in Pennsylvania's coal mines and iron factories. I often find Polish editions of herb catalogues from this time period as well.

[Anonymous] "Five in One Dream Book, Which Gives an Interpretation of All Dreams in Numbers of 3 Figures: Dreams, Numerology, Horoscope, Astrology" Published by Dorene Publishing Company, Inc., 1472 Broadway, New York, N. Y. 128 pages, square-bound in paper wraps. 1938. The cover art is signed "L. Gross 38" at the lower right. Despite the promise of the title, this dream book provides only the 4 forms of fortune-telling named on the cover and the title page, namely Dreams, Numerology, Horoscopes, and Astrology. Page 1 is the title page, page 2, the indicia, provides the copyright date of 1938, and page 3 is a "Preface" that opens, "Dreams are a series of thoughts." Pages 4 through 44 comprise 41 pages of named dreams for which the only interpretations are, as foretold, "Numbers of 3 Figures." In other words, this is a lottery dream book, with no other divinatory or symbolic annotations. Pages 45 through 117 contain 365 fascinatingly detailed astrological daily forecasts concerning luck, love, business, health, and family matters, running from January 1st through December 31st. In addition, there are date-appropriate insertions for the days of solar ingress for each of the 12 signs of the zodiac, with a brief character analysis for each sign. Pages 118 through 127 give the names of people and places, each with a 3-digit betting number. Page 128 is an advertisement for 18 other Dorene books, including "The 6th and 7th Books of Moses," "Secrets of the Psalms, "Terrors of the Evil Eye Exposed," "The Secret of Numbers Revealed," "Albertus Magnus," "Pow-Wows" and the "The Master Book of Candle Burning." Because some of the listed titles by Henri Gamache [Anne Fleitman] and Mikhail Strabo [Sydney J. R. Steiner] were first copyrighted from 1941-1946, i believe that my copy of this dream book is a reprint that dates to 1946.

[Anonymous] "The Great Divine Dream Book Gives Interpretations of Dreams in Numbers of 3 Figures" Martin Publishing Co., New York, 1935. 64 pages. This is a strange booklet, comprised of several parts, as follows: It opens with a one page introduction to numerology and lucky day-numbers, which will be used to expand upon the dream interpretations. Then follow 8 pages that contain little more than three 3-digit numbers in very large bold type. After this comes a 24-page dream book, in which each dream is given a 3-digit number, and a 15-page list of men's and women's names, each also given a 3-digit number. Two pages of cities and one page of states are next, each with its 3-digit number. The final lists are the week days and the months, both sharing a single pages, each with a 3-digit number. After this there is an advertisement for a private and personal dream interpretation service which is free to anyone who sends a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Divine Publishing Co., P.O. Box 4, Station O, New York City, N.Y. Then there are two more pages of unexplained large-letter numbers. Next we have a two-page spread of advertisements: Holy Bible Incense from the Holy Incense Co., Department 25-B, 30 Church Street, New York City, on the left, and, on the right, an offer for a numerologist to work out your personal lucky number, based on your name, for free, if you purchase a copy of Black Herman's Dream Book ("the Master-Key Book of 3-digit dream numbers") from The Occult Co., P. O. Box 197, Station F, New York, N. Y. The next two-page spread features an offer to join The Divine Club, P.O. Box 4, Station O, New York City, and an offer to become an agent and make money selling dream books such as The Great Divine, The Black Herman, The 5 In 1, The Afro, The Hit, and Your Fortune for the Martin Publishing Co., also at P.O. Box 4, Station O, New York City. The last page contains further book titles, as well price lists for incense such as Mystic Dream, Oriental Lucky Number, and Mourner's Incense; perfumes and sachet powders; your personal horoscope by Professor Kayam, mystic gazing crystals, fortune telling cards, Brother Mizrah's Number Scope, and a variety of oils, such as New Orleans Van Van, Policy Special, Attraction, Quick Luck, and Hot Foot -- all of which could be had from The Divine Company at P.O. Box 4, Station O, New York City. The inside back cover advertised Professor Abdullah's $3.00 Astro-Numerology Chart for any day or any dream, from Professor Abdullah, Department 90A, Box 47, Madison Square Station, New York City. I have no proof, but given the time period, the style of typesetting, and the book titles and spiritual supplies offered, i am pretty sure that the Martin Publishing company was run by Joe Martin, the pseudonymous brother of Joe W. Kay (born Joseph Spitalnik, 1889–1967) who owned the Empire Publishing Co. and Fulton Religious Supply in New York.

[Anonymous] "Gypsy Witch Dream Book and Policy Player's Guide Containing a Complete Alphabetical List of Dreams with Their Lucky Numbers Including Birthdays and Their Significance. Unlucky Days, Rules for Learning Saddles, Gigs and Horses in Any Given Row of Numbers and What Amount They Will Bring. Combination Tables, Etc." 1902 First Edition "Copyright 1902 by Frederick J. Drake & Co., Chicago, Ill. U.S.A." Hardcover, red cloth binding, title in black and white lettering, plus a black silhouette image of a long-haired Gypsy With holding a stick and dancing wildly before an audience of six cats seated in a semi-circle. 208 pages. 1920s-1940s reprint, n.d, n.p., but "Printed in the U.S.A." in paper wraps with a red and black cover illustration of a woman with achondroplastic dwarfism dressed as a Welsh witch in an 18th century style dress with panniers. 208 pages. The pagination is off by 2 digits at the beginning, due to the typesetter having counted the front wrap as 2 pages. For this reason it is numbered up to 209, with a blank page 210 plus a black back wrap. Page 1 is the title page, and page 2 is the indicia. The dreams, their interpretations, and listings of lucky numbers for each dream begin on page 3 and conclude on page 190. Lucky numbers for "Gentlemen's Names" and "Ladies' Names" take up only a page and a half, on pages 194 and 195. Then follow short entries with groups of lucky numbers for playing cards, "Days of the Week," "Days of the Month," and "Holidays" through page 197, which concludes with "Unlucky Days" and "Lucky Days" for gambling during each month. Pages 198 and 199 cover "Birthdays and Their Significance, with no betting numbers. From the bottom third of page 199 through page 205 there are mathematical tables for calculating odds and payout rates for the game of Policy. Pages 206-207, printed sideways, are titled "Bung Loo," and give odds for that game. Pages 208 and 209, also printed sideways, contain the "Gypsy Witch Rate Sheet 12-78 Ballot and Policy Guide," showing odds and payouts for various combination bets. Page 210 (actually page 208) is blank and not numbered, and covers 3 and 4 are blank.

[Anonymous] "Lucky Dream Book" (cover title), "Gipsy Fortune Teller and Dream Book" (interior title and page header throughout) n.p., n.d, but circa 1886-1896. 32 pages. This booklet is a print-shop chop-job, badly cobbled together from extant typesetting, with broken type and wrongly-numbered pages. The original title page (1) and indicia (2) are missing, and the text begins on page 3, with the heading "Gipsy Fortune Teller and Dream Book" which continues as a header on every page up to page 34 (actually page 32), at which point the text breaks off in mid topic. In other words, this is a 32-page signature comprised of pages 3-34 of an earlier book. The fact that there is no publisher given and that the interior title does not match the cover title would seem to indicate that the printer who set the type decided to issue it as a pirated book for a cheap price. The content is very similar to that of "Madame Juno's Dream Book and Fortune Teller," but it is set differently, in a smaller point size with tighter leading, in two columns throughout. The book starts with 15 pages of "Dreams and Their Interpretations, and Numbers of the Lottery to Which They Apply." The numbers take the form of two 1, 2, 3, or 4 digit numbers per dream, suitable for playing Policy, the most popular lottery in New York at that time. Then follows a "Combination Table" and "When to Play Gigs" (policy combinations). The advice given is play "when the numbers are running" (when lots of wins are being announced) and to "make your play over in the night drawings" (as policy wheels were spun well past midnight in New York); a series of lucky days for play is then given. Half a page (one column) of 4 and 5 number gigs is then presented in the form of a "typesetters" folly -- a neat zig-zag list of numbers running down the page. The other half of the page is an instruction set for fortune-telling by dominoes. The next page contains a lesson on dice augury and "Curious Traditional Observations" to know the fortune of your future husband and find out the two first letters of a wife's or husband's name, The next page contains the An unusual mini-oraculum is next, which gives 6 possible answers to 5 possible queries concerning marriage chances and fortunate days. The next 7 pages deal with fortune telling and omens. "Charms, Spells, and Incantations" is first, and at 3 pages, it is more complete than the version in "Madame Juno's Dream Book," for it includes spells to Saint Agnes, Saint Magdalen, a prayer book spell to be undertaken when sleeping in "a strange bed," a nosegay dream spell made with graveyard dirt and Rue, a way to prick a written proposal of marriage with a needle and sleep on it to determine whether it is deceitful or true, how to know your husband's trade, a Christmas spell with mistletoe and alcoholic beverages, a Saint Peter's spell worked with 9 keys, a spells of 3 keys, a green pea-pod spell, and numerological fortune telling by counting the number of letters in names and dates, dividing by 7, and seeing whether the remainder is odd or even. Then come a Valentine spell, a dream spell using fresh Yarrow plucked from a grave, signs to choose a good husband or wife, and the fortunes of children according to the weekday of their birth. "A New Method of Fortune Telling by Cards" (a pack of 28 dealt into 4 stacks of 7, for matrimonial divination) is followed by "The Weather" described as omens, "Signs and Omens" perceived on the body and around the house (itching, tinnitus, stumbling on stairs, a howling dog, a spark on your candle wick), and prophetic information concerning children born on the various days of a Moon-cycle. Finally there are 2 pages on "Physiological signs," including the classical four temperaments (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic), 4 pages on "Physiognomy," and 1 page on "Nativity." It is this final entry -- a simplified form of astrology, made with a "Moore's Almanac" for the year of birth -- that marks this dream book as a chop-job, for it abruptly breaks off in June, with Cancer the Crab -- in mid-sentence! THIS IS PAGE 34 OF THE GIPSY FORTUNE TELLER AND DREAM BOOK AKA MOTHER SHIPTON'S GIPSY DREAM BOOK AND COMPLETE FORTUNE TELLER PUBLISHED BY HENRY J. WEHMAN, NEW YORK, 1890. Almost all of the methods of fortune telling in this book have been copied from earlier British books of the same type, some of which date back 20 years earlier, to the mid-19th century.

[Anonymous] "Madame Juno's Dream Book and Fortune Teller" Magnus Works, Box 12, Varick Station, New York City, 1886. 128 pages. Despite the title, the cover of this dream book shows a woman telling fortunes with a regular deck of playing cards, using a 7-card rainbow layout. The name of the publisher, Magnus Works, may derive from the fact that this company also published an English translation, "from the German," of the well-known grimoire, "The Egyptian Secrets of Albertus Magnus." Two other ads indicate that they also carried an English version of the German "Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses," and a card deck called "Madame Le Normand's Gipsy Fortune-Telling Cards with English and German Directions." The book starts with 75 pages of "Dreams and Their Interpretations, and Numbers of the Lottery to Which They Apply." The numbers take the form of three 1 or 2 digit numbers per dream, suitable for playing Policy, the most popular lottery in New York at that time. Then follows 1 page on "Good Combinations" and a "Combination Table" showing how many bets of 2, 3, or 4 numbers can be made by playing from 2 to 20 numbers at a time. After this we find a 2-page instruction set for fortune-telling by dominoes, a 1-page lesson on dice augury, 8 pages on palmistry, 12 pages on reading the placement of moles on the body, 3 pages of prophetic information concerning children born on the various days of a Moon-cycle, and 1 page on the fortunes of children according to the weekday of their birth. The next 10 pages comprise a set of instructions in fortune telling by playing cards, followed by 6 pages setting forth the symbols and meanings found in tea leaves and coffee grounds. After this, 6 pages present a series of folkloric "Charms and Ceremonies" for seeing the future husband, discovering a thief by sieve and shears, making a dumb cake to predict marriages, and assessing signs for a speedy marriage with a good husband or wife. An unusual mini-oraculum is next, which gives, on 3 pages, 6 possible answers to 5 possible queries concerning marriage chances and fortunate days. The text concludes with 2 pages of "Charms, Spells, and Incantations," including spells worked with keys, a ring, and a green pea-pod, as well as a couple of methods of numerological fortune telling by counting the number of letters in names and dates, dividing by 7, and seeing whether the remainder is odd or even. Almost all of the methods of fortune telling in this book have been copied from earlier British books of the same type, some of which date back 20 years earlier, to the mid-19th century.

[Anonymous] [As by "The Oracle"]. "Our 1928 Dream Book" "Presented Free with 'Home Companion,' June 2nd, 1928," Harmsworh, 8 pages. This is a fold-and-cut 8-page signature on newsprint that the reader of "Home Companion" was to assemble into booklet form. With it, but not attached, is a two-colour cover. Cover 1 is as shown, and covers 2, 3, and 4 are portions of full-page advertisements from the periodical. Inserted in this booklet as i purchased it was a second and similar dream book, also by "The Oracle" and also a fold-and-cut 8-page booklet on newsprint. This one is titled "Our Holiday Dream Book." It too was "Presented Free with 'Home Companion," but was dated June 29th 1929. My copy lacks the wraparound cover (which it almost certainly had at issue), so the former owner inserted it within the cover of the 1928 booklet. Both booklets are illustrated with excellent pen-and-ink drawings on every page. They both contain lists of dream meanings -- and the lists differ slightly from one booklet to the other. The "Home Companion" was a woman's journal, published by Harmsworh, for a total of 3,079 issues from 1897 through 1956. What appears to be a serial number on the cover (No. 1,632) is of unknown meaning to me, but i suspect it marks the 1,632nd issue of the series. The pseudonymous author known as "The Oracle" may have been a hired writer or, possibly Maud Brown, the editor of the "Home Companion" during the 1920s. Harmsworth, founded by Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865-1922), also published "The Daily Mirror," "The Daily Mail," "The Observer," "The Times," and many other well-known periodicals.

[Anonymous] "Queen of Gipsies' Dream Book and Fortune-Teller" Wehman Bros., 712 Broadway, New York 3, N.Y., 1922. square-bound in paper wraps. 96 pages. 1922. Cover art by H. C. Rost [1862 - c. 1930], (signed). Cover 2 is an advertisement for 30 different titles on divination, metaphysics, and occultism. Because the original publication of some of these dates to the mid-1930s, i believe that my copy is a 1938 reprint. The interior typesetting seems to date to 1922, as stated, but the content of the dream book is far older. Page 1 is the title page, with date. Page 2, rather than the usual indicia or copyright notice, is an advertisement for Madame Le Normand's Fortune Telling Cards. Pages 3 through 65 are dream interpretations with no lottery numbers. These have obviously been copied from a pre-1863 text because included is a lengthy and extremely disturbing entry on "Slave" ("... to dream that a favorite slave has become ungrateful and run away [... to dream] that one of your favorite negroes has become impertinent [...] someone will try to injure you through the medium of your slaves [...] therefore, look sharp to the characters of white people around." etc.) [Sorry, but this really does help date the plagiarized original text, which was published here in 1922, fully 59 years AFTER the end of slavery in America!] Pages 66 - 78 comprise the Mystic Circle Fortune-Telling Oracle, an oraculum of 70 questions with 700 answers. The Cabalistic Table of Hebrew-style numerology follows on page 79 and supplies a one-word outcome for the reduced numbers 1-100, 100-900 (by 100s), and 1000-4000 (by thousands). "How to Determine the Lucky and the Unlucky Days of Any Month in the Year" is on page 80. The "Matters of Love" mini-oraculum (5 questions with 6 answers each), takes up 2 pages. "Astrology" runs from pages 83 to 89, and gives Sun-sign characteristics through the zodiac (oddly, beginning with Aquarius) plus descriptions of the influences of the planets -- but not the Sun, and not Uranus (discovered in 1781) or Neptune (discovered in 1846). One page covers "To Know if You are Long-Lived" by measuring a specific ratio on your skull and "Discovering Truth From Falsehood" by name and birth date numerology reduced to an odd or even number. "Fortune Telling by the Crystal" is 2 pages long, "Palmistry" is 3 pages long, and "Fortune Telling by Dice" concludes the book on page 96. Cover 3 advertises 25 books on divination, occultism, and metaphysics, the most recent of which was published in 1946, again confirming that this is a later reprint of the 1922 book -- and perpetuating that ugly "Slave" dream entry more than 80 years after Emancipation! Cover 4 advertises another 24 occult and metaphysical books, including "Secrets of the Psalms," "The 6th and 7th Books of Moses," "The Guiding Light to Power and Success," and "Black Herman." Because there is confusing and incorrect information all over the internet that conflates the artist of this Dream Book cover, H C. Rost, with another New York engraver of about the same time period, E.C. Rost, i spent about 4 hours researching H. C. Rost through Ancestry.com (for which privilege i thank my cousin, Dr. Jeremy Weiss) and i have constructed a timeline of his activities as an artist, etcher, engraver, painter, and printer from 1898-1925, available on request.

[Anonymous] "The Star Series of Egyptian Dream Book" Whitman Publishing Company, Racine Wisconsin, n.d., side-stapled in paper wraps, 64 pages. There is no copyright date on this small paperbound book. The awkward title derives from its application to ten titles, including "The Star Series of 145 Parlor Games," "The Star Series of 1000 Conundrums and Riddles," "The Star Series of Selected Vaudeville Jokes," and so forth. The other nine books are reproduced in black-plate-only in a 3-by-3 grid on both inside covers, and named by title on the back cover. The dating is complicated by the fact that the Star Series books are similar to the small books published and copyright in 1908 by Wehman Bros. -- including Wehman's "145 Parlor Games" and "Egyptian Dream Book" -- but although this book looks like an updated Wehman Bros. title of an earlier decade, neither the art nor the text are copies of the Wehman Bros. "Egyptian Dream Book." Whitman began publishing books for children in 1915, and i estimate that the clothing of the women depicted on the other Star Series titles points to a date range from 1920-1923, when slim lines, flattened bosoms, waist-belts, mid-calf hems, upswept hair, and structured hats were popular. The cover art depicts a woman in an early 20th century Arabic "harem girl" fantasy costume, asleep on a divan, with a nightstand beside her and, through her window, a view of clustered minarets emerging from a pink cloud. It is signed "G' in a distinctive triangular form -- an initial i have seen on other Whitman publications. The colouring is typical of Whitman's high reproduction standards for four-colour printing, precise and in-register, using the limited Y-R-B palette of comic books of the era. Page 1 is the title page. Page 2, sans copyright, declares that the book was "Printed by Western Printing and Lithographing Co., Racine, Wisconsin. Printed in U.S.A." That's no surprise, as Whitman was the creative arm of Western Printing, or, vice versa, Western was the printing arm of Whitman Publishing. Page 3 bears the heading "The Key to All Dreams," and from there to page 64 we have a block of tightly typeset dream interpretations, with no lucky betting numbers. It appears to me that the typesetter ran out of room on page 64, because there are no entries for the letters X or Y, and the entry for Z consists only of "Zinc," without the usual "Zodiac" or "Zoo."

[Anonymous] "Woman's Weekly Dream Book" "Supplement to Woman's Weekly, October 3, 1953." 16 pages, no wraps. Printed in England by the Amalgamated Press, Ltd., London. "6473." (This is probably the serial number of the issue of Woman's Weekly it was issued with.) This little inclusion to a weekly periodical stands out due to the elaborate and delicate pen and ink art on the cover. The style certainly marks it for an intended female audience, but what is remarkable to me is how deliberately "old fashioned" it is for 1953, with the sleeping princess of a woman on an upholstered and pillowed divan, framed by two rococo pillars topped by porcelain vases of flowers, and backed by a towering floral wreath on a pillar from which yards and yards of dainty netting are draped. This fabulous fantasy confection is signed "B.Y.," a pair of initials i sadly do not recognize. There is no title page or indicia. Simple and to the point, with no interior illustrations, the list of dream images and their interpretations begins sharply on page 2 with "Abandon" and runs alphabetically through to "Zoo" on page 15. Thereafter, on pages 15 and 16, we have a classic set of omens and signs for things observed in waking life, titled "Are You Superstitious? Some Amusing Meanings That Will Intrigue You, But Don't Take Them Seriously." The omens are also listed alphabetically, from "Apple" ("a proposal if you are single, and a child if you are married") through "Vest" ("If you put on your vest inside out -- do not change it for it means good luck"). And there you have it; a dream book with no lottery numbers presented in two sturdy columns per page of nicely set type, and a cover from out of this world.

[Anonymous] "Your Birthday Dream Book: Your Lucky Dream Number in Three Figures, Including Full Interpretation of What Your Dream Means" Mutuel Publishing Co. 617 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, Pa. No date, circa 1936-1939; My copy bears no copyright date and no advertisements, but clues to the publication date come from the style of the cover art and typesetting, and the dream topics listed (or not listed). Another copy offered for sale was said to be copyright 1939 by Mutuel Publishing of Youngstown, Ohio. 64 pages, paper wraps. The title of this book is misleading, as there is nothing at all in the text that relates to birthdays or signs of the zodiac. What we have is a very bare, stripped-down dream book for gamblers, with only minimal attention paid to dream interpretations. There is no title page and no indicia. The text begins on page 1 and is a single page of text affirming that "dreams are the state of the sub-conscious mind" and "every dream has a meaning." Furthermore, this book "if consulted regularly, will accurately give you the coming day's number." Plus, "if your dream gives you a certain number play that number till you dream again and you will realize many hits." Pages 2 through 16 contain dreams with short interpretations and a 3-digit number for each dream. No 19th century topics are mentioned, and we do have "automobile," "railroad," and "telephone," so this is a modern and up-to-date dream list. From page 17 through page 61 hundreds of dreams are listed with no interpretations at all, but each with its 3-digit number. This compilation contains a number of unusual and unexpected dream images, among them "chirography," "habeus corpus," "homeopathy," "opium," "rupee," "showcards," "wildwoman," and 'yellow fever." Pages 62 through 64 contain a list of Women's Names and a list of Men's Names. And that is it. End of book. The Mutuel Publishing Co. published and sold lottery dream books through the 20th century. As the content makes clear, the customer base was not interested in spiritual development so much as in playing games of chance. This book gave them what they wanted. The old building at 1617 Cherry Street, in what was once a thriving area of small businesses, was demolished in the name of "urban renewal," and the entire area is now just a wasteland of box-like office spaces and parking lots. Only the African American Museum in Philadelphia, one block down and around the corner on Arch Street, tries to keep the memories of this neighborhood -- and the African diasporic experience in general -- alive.

[Dr. Harter] "Dr. Harter's Dream Book" The Dr. Harter Medicine Co., St. Louis, Mo. Circa 1889. 32 pages, paper wraps, illustrated. This pocket-sized dream book is a mix of dream interpretations, floriography, palmistry, birthstone lore, and love spells, interleaved with advertisements and testimonials for Dr. Harter's herbal-mineral based medicines, including German Vermifuge Candy, Wild Cherry Bitters, and Iron Tonic. The testimonials scattered throughout the booklet are dated, which helps us date the item itself, and they range from 1878 to 1888, so i have assigned this booklet to the year 1889. The cover art is a composite of images. A woman sits in a chair, reading a book, while above her, in the clouds, a couple is being married by a pastor. Behind, beside, and over her is a crescent Moon, a garland of flowers, and an Owl. The Moon is marked "Dr. Harter's" and "Trade Mark" and the Owl sits in the initial "D" of the words "Dream Book." Beneath the Owl, inside the letter "D" is some sort of smiling sprite or leprechaun, who tips his hat at the viewer. Below this is a landscape, titled "Tam O'Shanter's Ride," based on the poem "Tam O'Shanter," written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1790. In this image, Tam O'Shanter and his horse Meg gallop over the stone bridge of Doon by the abandoned church and graveyard at Alloway, as he looks back in terror at three female witches who fly through the air in pursuit and have seized the tail of the mare. Cover 2 lists Dr. Harter's medicines, of which there are 12. Page 1 is an advertisement for Dr. Harter's Iron Tonic. Pages 2-4 contain a brief illustrated guide to "Palmistry." Page 5 is an advertisement for Dr. Harter's Little Liver Pills. Pages 6 and 7 comprise a monograph on "Dreams," illustrated with an engraving titled "Gen. XLI: 14, 15" -- in which Joseph interprets Pharaoh's troubling dream. Page 8 is an advertisement for Dr, Harter's Lung Balm. Pages 9 through 24 contain the dream book proper, with short interpretations and no lottery numbers. It is a bit old-fashioned for its era (no "railroad" or "steamship"), but is also not patterned on a British original (no "abbey" or "gibbet"), and it concludes with an advertisement for Dr. DuChoine's Nerve Pills. Page 25 gives us customs of the New Moon, a spell employing a love letter as a personal concern, and a recipe for a love potion. Pages 26-27 contain "The Language of Flowers," a short work on floriography. This is followed by the "The Language of Gem Stones," which is attributed to the Tiffany Jewelry Co., and covers the topic of birthstones on pages 27-28. An advertisement for "family medicines" follows, and page 29 also presents a grouping of "Riddles." Pages 30-32, as well as cover 3, consist of advertisements for medicines that ameliorate female irregularities, menopause, kidney disorders, and gout.

Madame Le Normand [Pseudonym]. "Madame Le Normand's Fortune Teller and Dream Book" I. & M. Ottenheimer Publishers, Baltimore, Maryland. n.d. 48 pages. This is a compilation of excerpts from 19th century books on omens, divination, and dream interpretation. I. and M. Ottenheimer published quite a few lottery dream books and fortune telling texts, most of them from older German or english sources. There is no copyright date on this saddle-stitched pamphlet but it is identifiably from the late 19th century, judging by the style of typesetting and the contents. Page one is the title page and page 2 is blank. Pages 3 and 4 are a small oraculum titled "Fortune Telling Tablets" that produces 25 results. Palmistry takes up the next 2 pages, and is followed by 1 page on reading moles. The fortunes of children born under every day during a lunar cycle is about 2 pages long; then comes "Charms, Spells, and Incantations" on about 7 pages, including domestic magic for the Fast of St. Anne's, "The Ring and Olive Branch," Sleeping in a "Strange Bed," "The Nine Keys," "The Witches' Chain," and so forth. Then follows a 3 page segment on "Physiognomy," and a 3 page numerology instruction titled "How to Tell a Person's Character by Means of Cabalistic Calculation." "Fortune-Telling by the Grounds in a Tea or Coffee Cup takes up 2 pages, and fortune telling "By Dice" covers both a two-dice and a three-dice method on 1 page. "The Moon" is a 1 page series of systems for calculating lucky and unlucky dates by a more or less random set of linked "if-then" occurrences, few of which actually involve the Moon. After this, "Fortune Telling by Cards" is more to the point, with 17 solid pages of methods, including "Dealing the Cards by Sevens," "Dealing the Cards by Fifteens," "The Italian Method," and "Past, Present, and Future" -- all popular layouts in the 19th century. Finally, after all of that, we get to the actual section on "Dreams and Their Interpretations," which occupies 5 pages. It is highly unusual, being divided, without sub-headings, into dreams of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, fish, fruit trees, garden flowers vegetables, and grain crops, each species specifically named and none listed in alphabetical order. To find your dream in this booklet, you would have to be familiar with biological taxonomy! There are no dreams listed for minerals, man-made objects, or people. The final 2 pages are blank.

[Jeremiah Mac Donald, M.D. Ph.D.] "Dr. Mac Donald's Astrological Dream Book: A Comprehensive and Scientific System for the Interpretation of Dreams" Atlas Printing Co., Binghampton, N.Y. Circa 1921 - 1954 in various editions, 2018 reprint by Forgotten Books. 64 pages. (((I do not know of any comprehensive bibliographic comparison of the editions, but this is certainly one of the most popular and longest-running dream books in print. The original publication date is not given in my copy, but the author, Dr. Jeremiah Mac Donald, published an annual almanac, and the edition for 1914 is subtitled "17th Year," which indicates a start-date of 1897 for his almanac series. The Library of Congress holds an early edition of "Dr. Mac Donald's Astrological Dream Book" which is rubber-stamped "Copyright 1921 By A. C. Mac Donald." How A.C. Mac Donald was related to Jeremiah Mac Donald is unknown to me, but i have a strong feeling that this was a belated copyright or a copyright renewal by a successor. An earlier original date for the dream-dictionary portion of the text is indicated by the entries for steamboat, quarantine, leprosy, and slave, not to mention abbey, gibbet, seraglio, sorceress, and fan. These were probably copied verbatim from a mid-19th century dream list. The interior art is a mish-mash of late Victorian engravings and early 20th century cartooning, and the typesetting and fonts certainly date to the era before World War One.))) I will have a problem in describing this book, since the several editions contain different material within the same cover. My copy is circa 1939. There is no title page and no indicia. Page 1 is an "Introduction" about dreams. Page 2 begins a unique system of "Explanations of Dreams and Visions." These arE taxonomized rather than alphabetized, and the list runs through page 24, with sub-headings for Fire; Air; Celestial Fire; Water; Navigation; The Earth; Flowers; Herbs, Culinary and Medicinal; Wheat and Other Grains; Trees and Their Fruits; Birds and Insects; Reptiles and Fish; Quadrupeds; Childbirth; Decapitation; Wounds; The Hair; The Forehead; The Ears; The Color of the Face; The Eyes; The Nose; The Cheeks; The Mouth; The Lips; The Teeth; The Beard; The Shoulders; The Neck; Horned Heads; The Breast and Bosom; The Arms; The Thighs; The Hands; The Nails; The Knees; The Legs; The Feet; The Flesh in General; Garments and Apparel; The External Afflictions; Drunkards; Games and Pastimes; Singing, Musical Instruments, and Comedy; Running; Capital Punishment; Funeral Ceremonies, Death, and the Grave; Celestial and Religious Matters; The Sun; Moon and stars; Infernal Matters; Miscellaneous Dreams; and a Note. An alphabetized dream dictionary occupies 18 pages and is followed by The Astrology of Herbs on 1 page. Signs and Omens take up 1 page, Astrological Notes comprises 2 pages, Significations of Moles is on 1 page, and after that comes Astrology and Astrology the Gateway to Success, with a short advertisement for the "new edition" of Mac Donald's "Secrets of Astrology Revealed." Next come 2 pages titled A Little Bit of Humor, consisting of short jokes. After that there is 1 page on Science of Kissing, Eye Flirtation, Hat Flirtation, To Let Maidens or Widows Dream of the Man They Are to Marry, and a method To Make the Court Cards Always Come Together in a deck of cards. The next page covers Birthdays (of the week), Gems Symbolic of the Month, Wedding Anniversaries, and Seven Sundays Each Week. Then follows a 1-page advertisement for Mac Donald's Farmers' Astrological Almanac, with an engraving of Dr. Mac Donald, a bearded man of middle age. A third and different page of Astrological Notes and a second and different page of Signs and Omens are followed by a single page of advertisements for 1930s-era "new best-sellers." such as the "King Tut Dream Book Policy Player" (circa 1920s), "Black Herman" (before 1935), "The 7 Keys to Power" by Lewis DeClaremont (circa 1938) and "Madame Fu Futtam's Magical-Spiritual Dream Book" (circa 1938). Several divination systems are given on 1 page: Dice, The Luck of Nail-Cutting, Weekdays and Their Meanings, Fortune Telling by Dominoes, and Fortune Telling by the Grounds of a Tea or Coffee Cup. An advertising page presents Zodiac Fortune Telling Cards (30 cards, with 2 lucky numbers per card) and Egyptian Fortune Telling Cards (79 cards with 7 lucky numbers per card), plus what seems to be an oraculum, described as "a booklet of 32 pages that contains 116 questions ... with 587 answers." The next page advertises two books on "Good Letter Writing." This is followed by 1 page advertising Bible Specials, The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, Albertus Magnus, and Crystal Gazing by The Zancigs (circa 1926). The next page advertises "Solar Biology" by Hiram Erastus Butler (1841 - 1916). Cover 3 is an advertisement for Dr. Mac Donald's Atlas Compound, a laxative. This lone medical product, when compared to the many herbal medicines offered in earlier editions, shows just how fat the U. S. Food and Drug Administration had come in their program of destroying herbalism and folk medicine. The back cover advertises Mac Donald's Farmers' Almanac and Weather Guide for 25 cents a copy. (((Dating is quite complex because my copy, although obviously later than the 1921 edition held by the LoC, contains fully typeset pages that are different, and just as archaic in appearance, as their 1921 copy. My copy has an ad for Dr. Mac Donald's book "How to Succeed, or the Secrets of Astrology Revealed" from 1923, but advertisements are easily changed and updated, so it should be noted that my copy also advertises books from the 1930s and 1940s, including "Crystal Gazing" by the Zancigs (c. 1926), "King Tut Dream Book Policy Player" (circa 1920s), "Black Herman" (before 1935), "The 7 Keys to Power by Lewis DeClaremont (circa 1938) and "Madame Fu Futtam's Magical-Spiritual Dream Book" (circa 1938) -- so mine is a mid-range edition of the title.)))

Marjah of India [Pseudonym]. "Dream Book by Marjah of India" Self-published at 542 North Sixty-Eighth Street, Seattle, Washington, but "'The World Printed It,' Shenandoah, Iowa" appears on the back cover, referring to the presses of the Shenandoah Daily World newspaper, which was in existence from 1921 -1924, thus dating the booklet. 32 pages. Marjah of India is shown on page 1 and on the back cover in half-tone, a thin, narrow-faced Anglo-Saxon man in an Indian turban -- thus identifying him as a wandering stage performer who probably worked with a crystal ball and answered sealed questions from the audience. Such entertainers usually stayed over after their performances in small theaters to give private psychic readings and sell crystal balls and books such as this one. Marjah was unusual, though, in that the other books he offered, advertised on both inside covers of this pamphlet, were about sex. They were "Ideal Sexology" by Mary Allen Woodward, M.D., and "Private Lessons in the Cultivation of Sex Force" by an unnamed author, which, when purchased for $2.00, also qualified the buyer to have five private questions about sex answered by Marjah. Page 1 is a Preface by Marjah, whose old home in Seattle is still standing -- a sweet little Craftsman style cottage on a long, steep hill. Pages 2- 3 contain instructions and two coupon forms to fill out when sending in 50 cents for three questions to be answered. Page 4 is unprinted, being the reverse of the coupons. Page 5 is an application blank to be sent in with $2.00 for a 3-month membership in the Crystal Simla Silence League, which entitled the member to receive an extensive zodiacal reading, instructions for the league, and a private interview with Marjah, "when possible." It should be noted that Marjah's "Simla" Crystal Silence League, just like his turban and stage act, is a direct copy of the original Crystal Silence League founded in 1919 by the stage performer Claude Alexander Conlin, and still in existence today. Page 6, the reverse of the application blank, is unprinted. Pages 7-32 consist of a lengthy, detailed set of dreams and their interpretations, without any lucky numbers, probably copied from an earlier text.

Franklin D. Martini (as "Martini the Palmist"). "What Your Dream Meant: A Collection of Dreams Based on Modern Psychology and the Working of the Subjective Mind, Dreams That Have Actually Been Verified in Hundreds of Cases" I. & M. Ottenheimer, Publishers, Baltimore, Maryland. 1906. 192 pages. The edition shown here is the second printing; the first printing has the same navy blue art, but the title lettering is in red against a white background. The cover depicts a complex montage of ideas: A large owl embraces an egg-shape crystal ball within its wings, and within the crystal is a woman asleep in her bed, against a starlit sky with a waning crescent Moon, who seems to envision a path that leads to a multi-tiered, towering castle. The crystal egg is balanced on a faceted stand, in front of which is a spread-winged bat and a symmetrically matching pair of banded snakes waving their heads in the air. The publishers, I. and M. Ottenheimer, released an extensive list of books. According to Harry B. Weiss's "A Brief History of American Jest Books" (The Bulletin of The New York Public Library, April 1943), "This firm started in the publishing business in 1890 and has published over 100 different titles of joke books [...] in addition to books on self-taught Spanish and Italian, fortune-telling, boxing, letter writing, dreams, hypnotism, how to become beautiful, etc. Nearly all have copyright dates. Some, according to their title pages, were edited by Irv. Ott or Moe Ott who are, of course, Irving and Moe [Moses] Ottenheimer. The sales [...] were tremendous during the first world war, but dropped off after 1929. Between them, these two firms [I. and M. Ottenheimer and their major competitor Wehman Bros. of New York City] supplied the public for many years with enormous numbers of jest books" ... and occult books as well. Cover 2 advertises "The 6th and 7th Books of Moses." Page 1 is the title page, and page 2 contains a short poem found also in "The Universal Fortune Teller": “To dream of seeing strange apparitions As devils, hobgoblins, and such visions Does show thy love, or thy sweetheart Hath a fair face but devil’s heart.” Pages 3-6 comprise the "Preface." "A Few Facts" taken from 1903-1904 newspaper accounts of true dreams occupy pages 7-8. Pages 9 through 173 contain an excellent alphabetical list of dream meanings with no lucky numbers, neatly typeset. Pages 174 through 178 contain the "Appendix," with "Signs and Omens" derived from body itches, things seen on the street or in the home, and dream self-induction. Page 179 is an advertisement for personal palmistry readings by Franklin D. Martini, the author, at 1404 Penrose Ave., Atlantic City, N.J. Pages 180 through 184 are ads for other I. & M. Ottenheimer books, and pages 185-192 are blank. Covers 3 and 4 also contain advertisements for Ottemheimer books.

Mother Shipton [Pseudonym]. "Mother Shipton's Deam Book and Complete Fortune Teller with Their Lucky Numbers" Henry J. Wehman, New York. 1890. 64 pages. Mother Shipton (1488-1561), to whom this book is ascribed, was born Ursula Southeil and became a popular English soothsayer and prophetess. She lived in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and is said to have predicted the great fire of London, the coming of the Spanish Armada, and an outbreak of the black plague. As her mother, Agatha Southeil, was not married and refused to name Ursula's father, both mother and daughter were shunned by the townspeople and took up residence in a local cave, where a deep pool was said to assist Ursula's talent for scrying. Agatha was sent to a nunnery, where she died shortly thereafter. Ursula married a carpenter from York named Tobias Shipton, but he also died young, leaving her a widow. She came to be known as Mother Shipton and people travelled great distances to consult with her, receive her remarkably accurate predictions, and obtain the herbal remedies she made. The first account of her life and prophecies was published in 1641, eighty years after her death. The cave where she lived is maintained as a monument to her and it contains a sculpture of her within. None of that has anything to do with this late 19th century American pamphlet, nor, despite the title, was she a "Gipsy" (Roma woman). The inside front cover is an advertisement for "The Wizard's Manual: Secrets of Black Art, Ventriloquism, and Hypnotism," consisting of simple stage magic that a bright child or teenager could perform. Pages 1 and 2 are the title page and indicia. Pages 3-17 contain 15 pages of "Dreams and Their Interpretations, and Numbers of the Lottery to Which They Apply." The numbers take the form of two 1, 2, 3, or 4 digit numbers per dream, suitable for playing Policy, the most popular lottery in New York at that time. Then follows a "Combination Table" and "When to Play Gigs" (policy combinations). The advice given is play "when the numbers are running" (when lots of wins are being announced) and to "make your play over in the night drawings" (as policy wheels were spun well past midnight in New York); a series of lucky days for play is then given. Half a page (one column) of 4 and 5 number gigs is then presented in the form of a "typesetters" folly -- a neat zig-zag list of numbers running down the page. The other half of the page is an instruction set for fortune-telling by dominoes. The next page contains a lesson on dice augury and "Curious Traditional Observations" to know the fortune of your future husband and find out the two first letters of a wife's or husband's name. An unusual 1-page mini-oraculum follows, which gives 6 possible answers to 5 possible queries concerning marriage chances and fortunate days. The next 7 pages deal with fortune telling and omens. "Charms, Spells, and Incantations" is first, and at 3 pages, it is more complete than the version in "Madame Juno's Dream Book," for it includes spells to Saint Agnes, Saint Magdalen, a prayer book spell to be undertaken when sleeping in "a strange bed," a nosegay dream spell made with graveyard dirt and Rue, a way to prick a written proposal of marriage with a needle and sleep on it to determine whether it is deceitful or true, how to know your husband's trade, a Christmas spell with mistletoe and alcoholic beverages, a Saint Peter's spell worked with 9 keys, a spells of 3 keys, a green pea-pod spell, and numerological fortune telling by counting the number of letters in names and dates, dividing by 7, and seeing whether the remainder is odd or even. Then come a Valentine spell, a dream spell using fresh Yarrow plucked from a grave, signs to choose a good husband or wife, and the fortunes of children according to the weekday of their birth. "A New Method of Fortune Telling by Cards" (a pack of 28 dealt into 4 stacks of 7, for matrimonial divination) is followed by "The Weather" described as omens, "Signs and Omens" perceived on the body and around the house (itching, tinnitus, stumbling on stairs, a howling dog, a spark on your candle wick), and prophetic information concerning children born on the various days of a Moon-cycle. There are 2 pages on "Physiological signs," including the classical four temperaments (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy, 4 pages on "Physiognomy," and 2 pages on "Nativity,' a simplified form of astrology, made with a "Moore's Almanac" for the year of birth. "Love Presents and Witching Spells,' "How to Obtain Happiness and Affluence," and "How to Make a Dumb Cake" take up one page; followed by 2 pages on how to read moles; 3 pages on various layouts for card reading; a 9-page version of "The Oraculum or Napoleon Bonaparte's Book of Fate," with 16 answers for each of 16 questions; 2 pages on "Fortune Telling with the Grounds of a Coffee or Tea Cup;" and 1 page of "Dreams, Tokens, and Insights into Futurity," such as "The Ring and Olive Branch" and a spell made with a love letter one has received. Next, 2 pages are given over to Observations Concerning Birds and Beasts" and "Fortunate Days, weeks, and Months." This is followed by 1 page on "How to Receive Oracles by Dreams," a series of 4 "Charms" or herbal and folkloric magic spells, and 2 pages on "Palmistry" and "Fingernail Observations." The final text page is a series of methods to increase one's proficiency at "Divination," such as by fasting, and an odd little "Traditional Way to Baffle Your Enemies." The booklet closes with 2 pages of advertisements for non-fiction Western books about Buffalo Bill, the Younger Brothers, the James Brothers, Rube Burrow, The Dalton Brothers, and Tracy, King of Bandits. The inside back cover advertises "The 6th and 7th Books of Moses or Moses' Magical Spirit Art." The back cover lists 48 of "The Latest and Best Joke Books on the Market," plus "The Gipsy Dream Book," of which this book is a variant-covered duplicate. All of the books were published by Wehman, but are sold through the Royal Novelty Company, South Norwalk, Connecticut.

Isaac Wright [as Madame La Vanie]. "The Three Witches or Combination Dream Dictionary" 1881 edition: "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by I. Wright, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington D.C. no copies found, but there is reason to believe that the type was set at this time (see the price list of "Premium Coins" which runs through 1879.) Pagination unknown, but probably 178 pages. 1887 edition: Copyright as above, but adds the line "Also, Entered in the year 1887." 178 pages. 1941 edition: "Copyright, 1941 by Phoenix Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD." 192 pages numbered through 190; the final 2 pages not numbered). 1984 edition: "Lama Temple, 1984" 190 pages (actually 192). The only copy i have is the enlarged 1941 edition of 192 pages. The full title page is: "The Three Witches or The Combination Dictionary, A Complete List of Dreams. Having Attached to Every Dream Its Fortunate Numbers; Also a Combination Table: And Also Giving a List of Foreign and American Coins, and Their Current Value in the United States. Also A Few Good Recipes." Printed in the U.S.A. Page 2 is the indicia. Page 3 holds the "Preface," where it is stated that, "Very many of these interpretations are given by Madam La Vanie, whose name is well known as Queen of the Voodoo's [sic] throughout the Southern States, where she carefully preserved the rites and incantations of that mysterious people as it was originally brought from Africa, where it was received direct from the Egyptians as practiced by them on the banks of the Nile thousands of years before the Christian religion." Page 4 is a table of contents, listing the dreams alphabetically, with numbers, but no symbolic meanings, from A on page 5 to Z on page 162. The "Alphabet" is on page 8, "Cards" on page 25, "Days of Week" on page 39, "Lucky and Unlucky Days" on page 40, "Dice" on page 43, "Dominoes" on page 45, "Fish" on page 56, "Flowers" on pages 58-59, "Metals" on page 88, "Moles" on pages 89-90, "Months" on page 90, "Ladies' Names" on pages 93-96, and "Gents' Names" on pages 97-102. Next come some technical "Combination Tables" for betting on Policy from pages 196-167. "Recipes," which are actually home remedies, run from pages 168-172 and include a small pox cure, "The Greatest Pain Remedy Known," cures for dyspepsia, and antidotes for poisoning. "A Complete List of Foreign Coins and Their Current Value in the United States" on pages 173-175 is unexpected in a dream book, for it it a straight-up 1881 numismatic price guide to gold and silver coins from Europe, Mexico, and Asia. This is followed by a price guide to silver and copper "Premium Coins" of the United States from 1793 to 1879 on pages 176-177. I believe this marked the end of the original 178 page first edition of "The Three Witches." At this point randomness ensues as we move past the original termination point. Page 178 consists of a bunch of extra dreams and their numbers. Beginning on Page 179 with the "Addendum," pages 179 and 180 list every mention of dreams in the Bible. On page 181 are found numbers for day and night dreams by week day, and month, and also "Monthly Flowers" and their numbers. Page 182 revisits the numbers for "Card Hands" and "A Deck of Cards," and adds "Astrological Signs." An entirely different set of "Names of Women" can be found on pages 183-186, and "Names of Men" on pages 186-190. Pages 11 and 192 are blank, as are covers 3 and 4. Regarding why there is a price guide for rare coins in this dream book, Jeff Garrett of the Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) notes that, "Some of the oldest rare coin price guides for US coins began in the mid to late 1800s. There was boom of collector interest in US coinage when the Mint stopped making Large Cents [in 1857]. A few of the great collections of the era were started at this time." In the 1941 edition of "The Three Witches," the earliest priced coins are 1793 cents and half-cents, and the last price is for an 1879 uncirculated proof Trade Dollar. The prices were of course laughably out of date in 1941, 60 years after the first publication of the book, but there they remained, as first typeset in 1881.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to nagasiva yronwode for above-and-beyond scanning and organizational help.