I recently picked read Jim Steinmeyer's Hiding the Elephant and very much enjoyed it. Can anyone recommend similar books, that is modern accounts of magic history?

Thanks.

Here are more books rich with magic history to keep you busy:

1. The Taschen magic history: 1400-1950s.

2. Steinmeyer's biographies of Thurston and Chung Ling Soo.

3. Mike Caveney's Classic Correspondence books. He just published his third volume.

4. Professor Kenneth Silverman's biography of Houdini.

Thanks, Im going to check them out.

Bradbury books has a paperback copy of the Silverman book for $12.00. Their selection of magic and magic history books is extensive:

http://www.bradburybooks.com/

James Randi wrote a magic history book titled "Conjuring." You can get a used hardcover copy for about $3 on Amazon.

Books have been written on Dante and Blackstone. Vernon as well.

This one is a little expensive, but you might want to give it a look:
Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater by David Price
https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Pictorial-H......+theater

There's also a somewhat more afforable listing at alibris.com
http://www.alibris.com/Magic-A-Pictorial......atches=4

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Great suggestion, Sonny! I bought that book from David himself at the Egyptian hall Museum.

This is a really good book...

https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Magic-G......10084536

Most will be individual biographies.

Check those at Miracle Factory by Todd Karr.
http://miraclefactory.net/zenstore/

By David Charvet,,, http://charvetmagic.com/

By William Rauscher... http://www.mysticlightpress.com/index.php?page_id=14

By Mike Caveney... http://www.mcmagicwords.com/

By Jim Steinmeyer... http://www.jimsteinmeyer.com/catalog/home.php?cat=249

By Dick Oslund... http://dennymagic.com/store/road-scholar......und.html

Paul Daniels and the Story of Magic by John Fisher.

Abbott's has just (re)offered a huge book of the history of their company.

Julie

Julie, can you provide the title of the book of the history of the Abbott Magic Company or a
a link to where it is listed on their website?

Thanks.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

I am not sure if this is what Julie had in mind, but this is a book I have on my shortlist regarding Abbott's rich history:

http://www.abbottmagic.com/Decades-80-Ye......book.htm

Milbourne Christopher's The Illustrated History of Magic is another great text.

A fun read is the autobiography of John Scarne; "The Odds Against Me". You can find it under $10 on Amazon.

That it is Ekins! I'm halfway through it. What a read and filled with magic history witnessed first hand by Scarne.

Does anyone know where I can get a detailed biography of T Nelson Downs? I am interested to read up on the King of Koins.

He'd definitely be an interesting biographical subject.

While not the main focus, Downs comes to life in David Ben's biography of Dai Vernon. For someone so successful, he comes across as massively insecure and jealous of others. And the better part of a century before BitTorrent, he was a huge pirate of copied magic manuscripts, with his own private distribution network...

David Ben has a lot of correspondence between Downs and Faucett Ross which he used for the Vernon book. If anyone were to write a book on Downs, it'd probably be him.

A few interesting links on Downs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nelson_Downs

http://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php?......on_Downs

Is it really palming if you have 60 coins held? Isn't that just a handful?