by Mandrake » Mar 30th, '05, 15:31
Well, I'm not sure about a full Review but this book arrived today and it really is rather good. It's a sort of Tarbell mixed with a bit of Reginald Scott and quite a bit of many other old books of the late 1880's. It's wonderfully illustrated with those nice pen and ink drawings (see below) so typical of the time.
There's some useful, if rather dated, advice for all performers - 'the (Magician's) costume of the present day is an ordinary evening dress suit'. The topics covered are almost too numerous to mention but included are basic card and coin sleights, tricks with regular decks, some routines with gaffed cards ( although no indication is given of where the 1880's reader would procure them!), catching cards on a sword, Bird Cage effects, gaffed tables, plates and trays, coin transpositions, coin to orange, various boxes and coin containers such as the Plug Box 'without which no Magician should be seen', Handkerchief effects, cups and balls, rope effects, tricks using eggs, sweets, hats, cannon balls, goblets, mirrors and so on.
Many of them require access to a tinsmith to make the gaffs but modern day equivalents could be substituted in many cases. For the piffling sum of £4.16 plus £2.75 P&P from Amazon, it's a good read and a useful, yet inexpensive addition to any magician's library.
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