I am sort of intermediate as a magician, yet I have never read these books. I feel like I'm missing out on some great material. Which one should I start first? Any other suggestions would be great! Thanks in advance!

They are both extraordinary and well worth study. You could work professionally from just the material in Tarbell and never crack another book.

The Wilson course was written by Walter Gibson and in some ways may be the best thing he ever did. It is also a gold mine of valuable material.

Have less money and time...go with Wilson. Have more time and money consider Tarbell.

I will say this: If you go with Tarbell be prepared to REALLY study if you want to get any real value from it. Because of the dated nature of most of the presentations the material will seem 'odd' at first. You have to read past that to see how stunningly good most of the material is.

Best,

Jay Marshall said that if you only learned 10% of the material in Tarbell, you could be the greatest magician extant.

FWIW

There both excellant learning material.
I would go with tarbell first though.
todd

Tarbell is an interesting series. A lot of crazy ideas, some very dated (but fun) presentations... but ultimately, this just means you have a great opportunity to make the material yours. Every topic is covered, as far as I can tell. Every time I flip through the books, or the 7th book (with a big index), I discover entire sections that I didn't remember, like the Linking Rings. They're definitely an investment, but tonnes of material to learn and have fun with.

*Note, I'ven ever read Mark Wilson's book, so I can't comment on it.

They're not really close to the same, but I understand the question. I would start with Mark Wilson simply because of size and cost. It can usually be found for less than $10 at a used bookstore. Based on that criteria alone, I would recommend it.

Tarbell is a wonderful resource, but it can be cost prohibitive to obtain all of them at once. It still comes highly recommended, but I'd start with Wilson because of the cost and because you'll be able to read through the material much more quickly to find usable items.

I am a newbie also, and have had the Wilson book on my shelf for years. My only concern with it is that it has had such a wide circulation that a lot of the material in it has to be more famliar. I hadn't even heard of Tarbell until I started to get involved again, but it's even got a Wikipedia entry fercrissakes, so it MUST be good.
I'm getting the Tarbell a volume at a time, mostly looking at used offers on Amazon or Advanced Book Exchange. Volume One is widely available, and should only set you back around $10-12 dollars with shipping. Volume Seven ended up costing me about $19.00 all in. Volume Eight looks expensive enough used that I will probably just buy it new.
But look: you could spend months just on Volume One, so just get a volume at a time, used, and don't kill yourself financially.

Tarbell doesn't have to be too expensive. While not the entire course, Lybrary.com offers a good portion of it.

http://www.lybrary.com/tarbell-course-p-34.html
Iven

Why not get both? If you have enough money to get all 8 volumes of Tarbell, what's another $10-$15 for Mark Wilson's book?

I wouldn't worry about it. Few people study magic. Fewer people try more than a couple effects in any given book. Most will be forgotten. All will be forgiven if you make it fun.

I like Wilson for starters. It has all you would need for a good variety of effects.

It would be hard to go wrong with Mark Wilson's book. The variety of material can't be beat. The illustrations and explanations are excellent.
Mike

Have a look on Amazon, you can get a used hardbound copy of Wilson's book for $14. + shipping. Because of the size, I would go with the hardbound over the soft.

edited

At a recent convention I showed some on the card thru silk from Mark Wilson. They loved it. There is a lot of strong stuff in that book.

Tarbell is a fine resource as well.

I wouldn't worry about this for a second. A huge amount of magic is as old as the hills and easily accessible (if you have the desire and know where to look). The vast majority of the public, and a decent number of magicians, choose not to. The stuff in Wilson and Tarbell would stump a decent number of new-age magicians who have only learnt the 'latest and greatest' DVD tricks, let alone any layperson.

Further, if you take the principle and wrap it in your own presentation you'll be even more difficult to scrutinise.

Tarbell gives more options for the same effect. But I certainly still use both! And I have only been doing magic 51 years.

Do contact "Rice" here on The Magic Café". Ruth (Rice) still has some original volumes and the Index to them. Since you can get the books one at a time, do get the index first. It will help you set priorities.

Enjoy your silk magic.

Bob

I wasn't at all saying one should buy the Tarbell and not Wilson or vice-versa. I'm dipping in to both (and into "Card College" by Giobbi.). I have "The Royal Road to Card Magic" by Hugard and Bruce Elliots's "Classic Secrets of Magic" on my Kindle and that will be my "homework" material while I am in Las Vegas this weekend.

But Pedro Nieves, the proprietor of Magic Inc. in Chicago, said, when I told him I had started acquiring the Tarbell course, "well, if your going to be a carpenter, you're going to need to get a hammer", which I took to be his subtle way of saying Tarbell is a foundational book. The staff there also told me that Elliot's "Classic Secrets" was a high favorite of Frank Marshall.

For what it's worth...

If your serious about studying and learning about magic - you owe it to yourself to get both and absorb both concurrently. I highly doubt these will be your only books ever. Most magic books serve as a recurring reference - That is how you gain some variant insight to 1 trick or sleight, etc. At least one aspect of book study for me.
Magic is a hobby or profession that is an ongoing education and grows with you as your preferences and prejudices change over time - shunning some things and rediscover it and embracing it all at the same time.
Just get both books and stop ****ing around if you're really sincere about it. And if your an "intermediate level", how did these printed resources get bypassed in the first place?! Too much You Tube perhaps. meh.

I've done stuff out of Wilson that even magicians who have the book don't recognize. I know some pros whose entire act can be found in Wilson. Same with Tarbell. Both classics, both worth having, reading and re-reading. Remember method is only one part of a trick, persentation is the main part. I've done the same trick with several different presentations before the same audience of magicians and they all thought they saw three completely different tricks.

I have both Wilson and Tarbell...A Magic Café Member was extremely nice and sent me PDFs of the Original Tarbell Mail Correspondence course. I bought a paperback version of Wilson from Amazon (wish I had gone hardback as previous poster suggested) I do not know if the .PDFs of Tarbell are the same thing as the published volumes. However, I am loving them both.

I adapted and updated an effect documented in the Wilson tome in order to meet my IBM requirement/obligation to perform magic before my fellow Magi. It killed and many of my brethren did not realize is was from the Mark Wilson Course in Magic! So yes, Photius is right on!

Both Tarbell and Wilson are great anchors to your magic library.

Regards,
--Matt