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I've decided to review each book in the Tarbell serries individually. This will take a bit of time, but if it convinces one person to buy these books, it will be worth it.

Tarbell Course in Magic Vol. 1

Table of Contents:
Lesson 1: History of Magic
Lesson 2: Magic as a Science
Lesson 3: Sleight of Hand With Coins
Lesson 4: Coin Tricks
Lesson 5: More Coin Tricks
Lesson 6: The TT
Lesson 7: Impromptu Tricks
Lesson 8: Ball Tricks
Lesson 9: Mathematical Mysteries
Lesson 10: Effective Card Mysteries
Lesson 11: Impromptu Card Mysteries
Lesson 12: Mental Card Mysteries
Lesson 13: Card Sleights
Lesson 14: Novel Card Mysteries
Lesson 15: Restoring Torn Paper
Lesson 16: Rope and Tape Principle
Lesson 17: Handkercheif Tricks
Lesson 18: Knotty Silks
Lesson 19: Eggs and Silks

Lesson 1: History of Magic
In this first lesson, you learn about the development of magic and how magic was and is seen by laymen. There are examples of magic from the bible, stroies about magic in the middle ages and much more in this chapter. This is not the most useful chapter in the book, however, many great patter ideas can be taken from this chapter so be sure to give it a good read.

Lesson 2: Magic as a Science
In my mind, this is one of the most important chapters in the book. Though no sleights or effects are taught in this chapter, you will learn things that are essentual to being a good magician. Topics like misdirection, angle of visiblility, how to practice, the proper attitude for performing magic and much more. Do NOT skip this chapter. I consider this to be one of the most important chapter's I've ever read in any magic book.

Lesson 3: Sleight of Hand With Coins
This chapter covers the basic methods of holding and vanishing a coin. The explanations are brief and to the point. There are things in this chapter that can't be found in Bobo's, for example, a few varitations of the French Drop. As pointed out in the book, the great thing about this chapter is that you will be able to perform these sleights with many small objects other than coins.

Lesson 4: Coin Tricks
In this chapter, you learn basic, but effective effects with coins. These effects use the sleights from Lesson Three and the priciples from Lesson Two.

Lesson 5: More Coin Tricks
Like Lesson 4, this chapter teaches simple but effective coin effects. Even if you have read Bobo's, don't skip these chapters. There are many ideas here that can't be found in Bobo's and are well worth your time to read.

Lesson 6: The TT
This chapter describes five effects that use a TT. All of them are very effective, and even if you dont use the exact effect from the book, you will learn how to use the TT and priciples that will allow you to learn and create different effects with your TT (for example, I don't perform the vanishing cigarette, but I learned things from that effect that helped me with other effects).

Lesson 7: Impromptu Tricks
This lesson is devoted to effects that you can perform with small objects that you can carry around with you wherever you go. The information in this chapter is very useful because a lot of the things you need for the effects can be borrowed (rubber bands, etc.).

Lesson 8: Ball Tricks
This lesson covers effects that can be performed with balls. From it, you will learn a cups and balls routine as well as a few effects with sponge balls.

Lesson 9: Mathematical Mysteries
This lesson contains princibles that are based on mathematics. Though I do not perfrom any of the effect described in this chapter, I do use the principles from it in other effects.

Lesson 10: Effective Card Mysteries
From this lesson you learn a simplified pass, a false shuffle, a double life, the slip change and how to palm a card. This lesson also shows how these sleights can be used to create simple, but good effects. As with coins, don't think you should skip these chapters on cards just because you've read Royal Road. Learn the effects and use the extra knowlage you have from Royal Road to come up with better methods. For exampe, I still perform the Rising Card Escape, but I use a better method.

Lesson 11: Impromptu Card Mysteries
This lesson covers effects that can be done with any deck of cards, anywhere at any time. Once again, don't skip this chapter as you may find some very good effects.

Lesson 12: Mental Card Mysteries
This chapter covers effects where the performer does things like mindreading to discover the spectators selected card. If you are into mentalism, don't skip this chapter as I think some the effects in this chapter are better than some from 13 Steps.

Lesson 13: Card Sleights
In this lesson, you learn the basic, but important card sleights. I recomend reading this chapter, then going back to chapters 9, 10 and 11 to see if you can improve any of the methods given to you for the effects.

Lesson 14: Novel Card Mysteries
This chapter covers effects that aren't your average card trick. Many of them are simply brilliant. They are unique and very effective. For example there is an effect here where a card has a corner torn off, the rest of the card is torn to peices and the pieces are wraped in a handkerchief. When the handkercheif is opened, the pieces have vanished and the card is found restored in an orange, still missing the torn corner help by the spectator.

Lesson 15: Restoring Torn Paper
This chapter gives you many methods of restoring a torn piece of paper. The effects sound simple, but when properly presented, they can be absoloutly mystifying.

Lesson 16: Rope and Tape Principle
Like the lesson on TTs, this lesson gives you only five effects, but many priciples and ideas that you can use to create other effects. This chapter is deffinatly worth reading.

Lesson 17: Handkercheif Tricks
In this lesson you learn some basic, but again, VERY EFFECTIVE, effects with handkercheifs or silks.

Lesson 18: Knotty Silks
In my mind, this is one of the most useful chapters in the entire serries. You will learn knots that can be aplied to not only silks and handkerchiefs, but ropes and cords. You will also learn effects that are simply brilliant. Just yesterday I was performing Al Baker's Silk Through Arm (which can actually be a silk though pretty well anything, provided it isn't too big) and was getting reactions so great that even I was surprised. If you do any work with ropes, this chapter is a must read as the knots will give you an endless supply of ideas. This chapter is also often refered to in other books in the serries.

Lesson 19: Eggs and Silks
This chapter teaches you effects that involve, you guessed it, eggs and silks. Not only are the effects in this chapter amazing, but learning them will help you understand how to vanish objects with silks (a very good method of vanishing small objects).

Overall, I don't think you will find a book that you will refer to more often than this and the other Tarbell books. Regardless of how many books you have, or how long you've been doing magic, these books need to be in your collection.

Overall 10/10

Nice review, I already reviewed this book a while back (and some of the other volumes) in the Tarbell thread. (The word at the top that says 'search' funnily enough is a search function)

Nothing wrong with multiple reviews, nice review

Yes, it's a great review and a wonderful series of books that every self respecting magician should own. The amount of effects in each volume is staggering.

Lord Freddie wrote:Nice review, I already reviewed this book a while back (and some of the other volumes) in the Tarbell thread. (The word at the top that says 'search' funnily enough is a search function)

I've seen your reveiw, but only thought you were doing the first four volumes. Oh, well. Nothing wrong with two reviews for this serries.

Certainly not old bean. I will get round to doing the other.
These books are real classics and are almost forgotten in the rush for the latest ellusionist thing. They represent far better money than some awful DVD with blaring rock or dance music.

I particularly like the effect Hanging Oneself With Ropes in the Rope and Tape Principle lesson in this volume. I have seen this effect being sold on it's own for half the price of the book. I'm assuming it's the same method.

This volume also has a detailed description of the pass, which you quite rightly pointed out adds to the information in Royal Road.

You bring up an interesting point in saying the Hanging Oneself With Ropes was sold for half the price of the book (I believe the effect is called Prisoner's Escape in the book). A few days ago, I looked up some penguinmagic effects that can be learned from the Tarbell Serries. I had about 25 effects worth well over 200 dollars. Granted, some of them came with props, but the props were things every magician should have (rope, silks, etc.)

If you bought thouse 25 effects, you would have spent more money than if you bought the entire Tarbell Course in Magic (and I'm sure there are more effects out there that are right out of Tarbell). With the Tarbell Course, you get these 25 effects plus hundreds, if not thousands more.

I hope that shows what great value these books are.

Excellent value and the out of date ones aside, the materials needed for these effects are generally very easy to come by. There are some unique effects in these tomes not seen anywhere else.

The quality of effects and the scope is part of what makes this course such an invaluable one to have.