Just got a note from Chris Wasshuber announcing the pdf re-release of the updated version of Bart Whaley's Encyclopedic Dictionary of Magic, available from Lybrary.com. Very cool! I've wanted a copy of this for some time now. Anyone else see this or purchase a copy yet?

Thanks for the update. At $50, this PDF is affordable.

When did you get the note, Im on his mailing list and don't recall seeing this..sounds great.. I have the one by Encyclopedia of Magic & Magicians by TA Waters...but like you been wanting the Whaley version. Did he give a price?

The announcement came to me yesterday. The price, as Tom stated, is $50. I believe there is more Whaley material on the way (such as "Who's Who...") in the future.

I just purchased a copy. At over 1000 pages this will take some time to review before I post any reasonably educated comments. Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions. From the amount of material I have reviewed in the short time since my download of the book I can already ensure a relatively positive review.

Many thanks to Mr. Whaley and Mr. Wasshuber for making this update possible and available at such a reasonable price.

Another great thing about this is that Wasshuber is declaring it a living document. He is soliciting feedback regarding typos and informational errors and then offering periodic free updates to purchasers. The first update included a full bibliography, with the promise of more to come. This is one of the most interesting and satisfying recent purchases that I've made. Is no one else interested in this?

Is the PDF searchable? (I'm asking because some magic publications, like Oracle, create their PDF as big graphics, instead of searchable text, which limits their utility.)

Wow, 1000 pages. Hope a review comes in after some time.

The pdf is searchable, with bookmarks for each entry in the dictionary, as well as thousands of hyperlinked cross-references. It is also enabled with the "Text-to-Speech" feature in AdobeReader.

I recently bought one and will be using it to check references to tricks and inventors on my site. It is fully searchable, but you do have to have some experience in computer searches or you end up getting bogged down in information you ASKED for, but didn't really want. Sometimes I find myself just browsing on down after finding the information I wanted, just because the information is so interesting. It was well worth the purchase price for me.