ZINGARA FORTUNE TELLER : A COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE ART OF PREDICTING FUTURE EVENTS by A Gypsy Queen [W.H. Johnston] - 1901

Philadelphia, PA: David McKay, 1901. Hardcover. Very Good Plus / Very Good. 12mo., 7.7 in. x 5.2 in., pp. 181, [7] (advertising). Green boards with black and red title to front, and black title to spine. Light foxing to endpapers. Age-toning to pages. Unmarked interior. Chips to top/bottom of dustjacket spine, and to dustjacket corners. Crease to rear of dustjacket. Protected in mylar. Includes The Cabalistic Chart, Fortune in the Tea Cup, Fortune Telling by Cards, The Meaning of Dreams, Lucky and Unlucky Days, The Language of Flowers, Physiognomy, Etc.

From Alana Piper's "Women's Work": "In his study of leisure in early twentieth-century England, Andrew Davies observes that fortune-telling was "among the most basic forms of penny capitalism" for working-class women, who were able to profit from divination's popularity with little capital outlay.7 Fortune-telling was likewise in vogue in Australia during the early 1900s. Newspapers advertised psychics practising different styles of divination, the most common being palmistry, card-reading and clairvoyant communication with the spirit world.8 There were also "seers" who did crystal-gazing, tea-cup reading or astrology, or who made a study of their clients' heads (phrenology), faces (physiognomy), fingernails (onymancy), handwriting (graphology), personal objects (psychometry), or auras. These services were sold in a variety of ways, from practitioners who worked from home to those who offered their skills door to door, through to futurists with a permanent presence at street markets, shops or other businesses where they commanded a corner. Fortune-telling's modishness was such that practitioners were even employed to give readings at fashionable parties and charity events. Nevertheless, it was still commonly portrayed as a working-class pastime. Working-class women were described as regularly seeking advice from fortune-tellers on a range of health and emotional issues, particularly in regards to marital difficulties, intimating that the practice may have provided an important psychological outlet for the expression of such concerns. On the other hand, as Davies suggests, it is probable that many women enjoyed fortune-telling simply as an amusing diversion from everyday life."