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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a strange dream, a line on your palm, or a tea leaf seems to hold tomorrow?
The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller, credited to Felix Fontaine, opens a world where ordinary signs invite extraordinary meanings. Dreams become possible messages about love, money, health and luck. At its heart is the dream dictionary: a way to look up an image and discover what this tradition makes of it.
This manual belongs to a tradition of popular guides that bring fortune-telling into everyday life. Alphabetical symbols, rules for omens and games for friends turn uncertainty into something people can explore together. Read it for a glimpse of folk belief, rather than proof of what the future holds.
What you’ll discover
- A dictionary of dreams Explore how familiar images, from water to weddings, become signs within this dream-reading tradition.
- Everyday signs and hopes See how dreams and omens connect with concerns about love, money, health and luck.
- The fortune-teller's world Meet a tradition where palms, cards and tea leaves offer different ways to seek meaning.
- Beliefs beyond polite books Look into popular beliefs that reveal how working people face uncertainty with little security.
- Room for playful curiosity Discover the social side of divination through games meant for a group of friends.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you love folklore, old parlor games, dream symbols, superstitions about love and luck, or the cheerful oddities of nineteenth century popular print.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A pin prick becomes personal advice
- Dreams can mirror the sleeper
- Dream meanings can run in reverse
- Everyday signs become lottery numbers
- Cards form a story through placement
- The body becomes a readable surface
- Small marks carry personal forecasts
- Imagination helps turn shapes into signs
- Practical lore preserves everyday belief
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The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller
by Felix Fontaine · 1862
Prick a number on a golden wheel with your eyes shut and read your fate, from rich spouse to old age.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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In short
What if you could pick your fate with a pin? Open this book and you meet a golden wheel with one hundred numbers.
The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller at a glance
- Reading time
- About 6 h4 h 45 min fast, 7 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 86,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1862by Felix Fontaine
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Prick a number and the wheel answers
The book opens with the Golden Wheel of Fortune, a circular chart that Fontaine says was much consulted in the middle ages. He claims he took it from an old Latin manuscript on astrology. It answers eight kinds of question, such as whether you will win the favor of a person you desire, whether a sick person will recover, and whether you will be rich or poor.
The method is simple. The person whose fortune is told lays the wheel face downward and pricks a pin into a number, preferably with the eyes shut. Then you look up the same number in the list of answers, which runs from one to one hundred.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1862
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Fontaine, Felix. The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-wheel-dream-book-and-fortune-teller.
Fontaine, F. (2026). The golden wheel dream-book and fortune-teller. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-wheel-dream-book-and-fortune-teller (Original work published 1862)
Fontaine, Felix. The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-wheel-dream-book-and-fortune-teller.
@book{fontaine2026golden,
author = {Fontaine, Felix},
title = {The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-wheel-dream-book-and-fortune-teller},
note = {First published 1862}
}
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What is The Golden Wheel Dream-book and Fortune-teller about?
It collects fortune-telling methods of the 1860s. It offers a wheel of one hundred answers, an alphabetical dream dictionary with lucky numbers, and readings by cards, dice, dominoes, the hand, moles, tea leaves, the moon and the divining rod.
What is the Golden Wheel of Fortune?
It is a circular chart the author says came from an old Latin manuscript on astrology. You prick a number with your eyes shut, then read the matching answer in a list of one hundred, which covers love, money, journeys and enemies.
Why do some dreams mean the opposite in this book?
The author explains that certain dreams go by contraries. Dreams of difficulty, disease, enemies or poverty foretell good, while dreams of riches or lottery prizes foretell want. Allegorical dreams stand for something else, while speculative dreams come true as dreamed.
The author
Felix Fontaine
1832–1896 · American journalist and author
American journalist and author.
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