author

Wiljalba Frikell

1818–1903

A 19th-century magician and popular writer on parlour entertainments, he turned sleight of hand, puzzles, and drawing-room amusements into lively books for ordinary readers. His work helped bring stage-style magic into the home.

1 Audiobook

Hanky Panky : A book of conjuring tricks

Hanky Panky : A book of conjuring tricks

by Wiljalba Frikell

About the author

Wiljalba Frikell was a 19th-century magician and writer best known for books of conjuring tricks, games, and home amusements. Sources identify him with the stage name Friedrich Wilhelm Frickel and place his birth in Sagan, Prussia (now Żagań) in 1818, with his death in Kötzschenbroda in 1903.

His name appears on a range of practical entertainment books, including Fireside Games; for Winter Evening Amusement (1859), The Parlor Magician, The Secret Out, and Magic No Mystery. These books were aimed at general readers rather than specialists, offering accessible tricks, puzzles, and recreations suited to the parlour and family gathering.

Because surviving quick-reference sources on his life are limited, it is safest to remember him chiefly as a performer-turned-author whose books helped spread popular magic and amusements in the English-speaking world.