Just posting about an interesting finding while adding some books to the Magic Book Table of Contents listings at: https://magicref.net/magicbooks/

Nicholas Einhorn back in 2002 had a great beginner's book of magic, "The Art of Magic and Sleight of Hand", that utilized over 1000 clear color photographs showing all the necessary moves for over 200 pages of magic. Then in 2007, there was a second book, "200 Easy To Learn Magical Illusions, Amazing Puzzles & Stunning Stunts", with a similar format and all new effects.

In a bit of research, it seems that the Art of Magic was later reprinted as "Practical Encyclopedia of Magic", and then again later as "How To Do Magic Tricks".

While I didn't find any renaming of the second book (200 Easy to Learn), this book was combined with Art of Magic into "Illustrated Compendium of Magic Tricks", which was later reprinted as "Ultimate Compendium of Magic Tricks". This is a huge volume of over 500 pages and over 2300 color photographs.

Even more recently there have been a lot of smaller books published which are essentially extracts of the larger books above. Examples are, "Card Magic", which includes the full card magic section of Art of Magic; "Inside Magic - Abracadabra Cool Magic Tricks With Cards", which has only an extract of the Card Magic Section; and "Close Up Magic", which includes some of the close-up magic chapters. And there are some others as well that in combination would include the entire contents of the larger books.

I understand that with such an extensive investment in up front photography and publishing, that the publishers want to get a much out of the work that they can. It just confuses me a bit when the same book is published under different titles. Someone who likes Nicholas' work might buy one of the later books thinking it is new material and be quite disappointed to find it is an extract of the book they already own!

From the advertiser's point of view, they are likely trying to ensure the new covers are up to data and appeal to the modern audience, so changing titles is probably an attempt to ensure the book sounds appealing.

This certainly isn't unique to these books as I've seen it elsewhere, but thought it was an interesting find!

I own the "practical encyclopedia of magic" version of this book,
very underrated, but definitely worth getting if you can find it.