Histories of Magic

kellar

The Art of Magic (Companion to the PBS Series), Carl Waldman, Joe Layden, with Jamy Ian Swiss (General Publishing Group)
Certainly redundant with the books below, but with somewhat more coverage of the contemporary (or at least 80s) scene. It does have a particularly attractive layout, and Swiss's participation adds considerable credibility, at least for me.

Magic: An Illustrated History, Milbourne and Maureen Christopher (Heinemann)
Don't confuse this book with the one below, though the titles seem designed to engender just that confusion. This is a much more text-heavy effort, and the images are different, though they overlap. This is as strong as any one-volume history of magic that I've seen. Christopher writes clearly and with great enthusiasm, and does not reveal a single secret.



Magic: A Picture History, Milbourne Christopher (Dover)
I taught this book last semester and the kids loved it: image-rich with a good but short text. The images are great, actually, and of course were particularly appealing to art students. I could have wished for more color, but not at this price. Christopher himself was a great collector of arcana, and the pictures are for the most partr from his own collection.



Phantoms of the Card Table, David Britland and Gazzo (Four Walls Eight Windows)

One of the first things I bought when I started this, with no idea what it was, was an ancient sheaf of yellow paper called "The Phantom of the Card Table." It seems to be the mimeo of a typescript, and was written by one Eddie McGuire, in the 1930s, to tout and describe the work of Walter Scott, supposedly more or less the greatest card cheat ever known. There was a lot of crazy hype, but also extremely clear and excellent descriptions of bottom and second deals. Scott became famous in magic circles when, introduced by McGuire, he flabbergasted the world's best card handlers (including Cardini and Max Holden) with his work. They shuffled the deck, handed it to him, and he immediately dealt himself four aces, etc. This book here is essentially the story of that encounter, along with a history of expert card handling from before Erdnase. One amazing feature: Gazzo found Scott in the early nineties in a retirement home. He learned his deals, marks, peeks etc. Gazzo himself suffered a stroke that disabled him from performing the work, but he recorded interviews. The handling is discussed at the end of this book concisely and clearly, and was almost lost forever. But it's not primarily an instruction book but a kind of cult of the cards celebration, complete with a host of cool and problematic characters, such as McGuire himself (an impossible con man, always on the make), Dai Vernon, Cardini, and Scott himself. I like devoured the thing at every spare moment till it was gone; now I can work on the indetectible peek etc.




Hiding the Elephant, Jim Steinmeyer (Carroll and Graf)
Essentially this is a delightful history of two effects: mirror-box disappearances and levitations. Steinmeyer is a professional illusion designer who's worked with Copperfield and many others. He discusses the mechanics of the effects; to me this makes the whole thing all the more interesting. Charles Morrit t is the slightly unlikely hero, whereas Kellar is depicted as a thief of the levitation effect. I wouldn't think that it's that much of an insult, especially given the ingeniousness of the theft and the improvements introduced to the effetc. But David Alexander tells me it's slander, anyway. I taught the Steinmeyer book this last semester and it went over very well.






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