Hello my friends,

I'm on a quest for book recommendations. Specifically, I'm after tomes from about 1930 to 1960, for the general public...the sort of thing you might have borrowed from the local library.

For example, I'm pretty well set for the Will Dexter, Blackstone and Thurston ones, and most of the (many) books from Walter B. Gibson.

So, which books or authors am I forgetting?

I ask for two reasons. First, in my articles I like to include bibliographic details of earlier sources while tracing the evolution of ideas. And then it's also partly for nostalgia sake. I learned to read around 1959 and checked out every magic book from our magnificent Carnegie library then. When I lay my hands on a book now that I thought I'd forgotten, it instead brings back a flood of fond memories. This has certainly been the case with the Dexter books; it's only recently I added these to my collection and instantly recognized all manner of things (pictures, turns of phrase, etc.) I hadn't thought about for sixty years.

So, do you have any you remember that you think I should be looking for? If you would, give me the title and author so I have enough info to start chasing after second-hand copies.

Thanks,

Thomas Henry

Henry Hay, Milbourn Christopher & Dunninger

Bill Severn & Guy Frederick

I'll quote myself from a previous thread:

When my childhood library relocated, I was lucky enough to obtain many of the actual books with which I began my magical journey. I have both Joseph Leeming books Fun with magic and More Fun with magic, Clayton Rawson's The Golden Book of Magic, Walter Gibson's The Master Magicians and both Blackstone books, Secrets of Magic and Modern Card Tricks.

Others that I remember fondly are the aforementioned Scarne book as well as his Scarne's Magic Tricks ,Hokus Pokus by Ib Permin, Pure Magic! by Henry Gross, Patrick Page's The Big Book of Magic and Henry Hay's The Amateur Magician's Handbook .

I could go on and on about this topic as I regularly visited about nine or ten libraries near me when I was younger to find treasures. One library had all of Bruce Elliott's books and another had the entire Tarbell course!

I spent a lot of time in section 793.8 and developed a love of magic, libraries and books because of it. Good memories.

Thanks for the suggestions, friends.

Of these, the Rawson and Permin books were new to me, so I just ordered a copy of each. I probably had seen the former sixty years ago. If so, chances are I'll recognize some of its contents when it arrives.

I'm still open to other recommendations from that era.

Thomas Henry

Norman Hunter wrote a number of books aimed at the public. Most were for primarily for children but he also used to write for Practical Mechanics magazine and many of his articles are repurposed in the following book

1952 - Successful Conjuring For Amateurs
Publisher: C Arthur Pearson Limited
Blurb: Over 380 pages long & beautifully photographed, it's 37 chapters cover conjuring with, for, using etc: Cards, Coins, Cookery, Lamps & Candles, Christmas, Furniture, Boxes, Camouflage, 'Weapons', 'Spookery', Dice, Watches, Escapes, Rings ... Oh! all manner of subjects, as you would expect from the late Mr. Hunter. This book is based upon the articles contributed to 'Practical Mechanics' magazine.

Never forget Robert Harbin. He wrote frequently for Abracadabra magazine (collected in Harbicadabra) but also had books published aimed at the general public.

1957 - How To Be A Wizard
Publisher: Osbourne Press
This was later republished as How To Be A Conjuror published by Sphere


Slightly outside your preferred date range but worth a look as it it beautifully illustrated with photographs.

1903 - Charles Lang Neil - The Modern Conjurer and Drawing Room Entertainer
Publisher: C Arthur Pearson Limited
Blurb: Explaining and illustrating tricks by a JN Maskelyne, Trewey, Charles Bertram, Nelson Downs, Mdlle Patrice, Paul Valadon and others

How about Peter Warlock's Book of Magic?

...and there is the great The Magician's Handbook and others by Robert Parrish.

Thank you so much GazelleR! Your suggestions were all new to me and just the sort of books I am looking for. (Not to mention that I'm a raving Anglophile...) So, I went on a shopping binge and have six books on the way now. I really appreciate your taking the time to write up such a detailed account.

And thanks too, Julie. It looks like I'll be splurging on even more now!

Thomas Henry

You're welcome Thomas. Those books have been on my bookshelves for most of my life but I still dip into them every now and again.

If you're an Anglophile then be sure to check out books by Neville Maskelyne and David Devant.

Neville Maskelyne & David Devant
1911 - Our Magic
Publisher: George Routledge & Sons Limited (and E P Dutton & Co in America)

David Devant
1910 - Tricks for Everyone
1931 - Best Tricks
Both published by C Arthur Pearson Limited
Tricks for Everyone is the better of the 2.

Faber and Faber put out a lot of magic books sold to the general public, although many of them were heavy duty titles like Royal Road, Expert Card Technique etc. The first magic book I ever bought at age 10 was Bruce Elliott's Classic Secrets of Magic by Faber, and I always thought Hugard's Modern Magic Manual was a pretty good starting point for the newcomer.

But one I'd like to mention in particular is Card Tricks Without Skill by Paul Clive, the book was very controversial at the time as, despite its title, the first chapter taught numerous moves such as false cuts and shuffles, the double lift, crimping, the glide etc etc. The book's title was obviously chosen in order to entice punters to buy in the expectation of getting self-workers, but the author insisted that these were just standard card handling moves and therefore didn't count as actual sleights! It was a pretty good book though, a bit like Scarne but with all the sleights left in instead of being removed.

These are from my youthful husband's memory bank:

Cub Scout Magic by Francis Rigney / The FIRST BOOK of MAGIC by Edward Stoddard / The Boy's Book of CONJURING...

...This last is a 5" X 7" hardbound book with dust jacket that reads "with nearly 200 illustrations from photographs" on the dust jacket. The photographs are great.

>The only information concerning the origin of the book states it is one of the Ward Lock series of USEFUL BOOKS > Ward, Lock & co. Limited, London and Melbourne<

It was always there on the magic shelf. I wonder who the author was...?

Hi Julie,



This is a tricky one to trace the lineage on, for it went through many editions from 1909 up through the 1950s. The editor of it was one Eugene Stone, at least for the later editions. In the undated PDF I have, while the title page reads The Boy's Book of Conjuring, the headings on the even pages show the title as "The Art of Modern Conjuring." This suggests to me the publisher had old printed stock on hand and simply bound it anew.

It may be its material was drawn from the 1860 book The Boy's Own Conjuring Book which I cited in my article "On the Trail of the Magic Age Cards," The Linking Ring, Volume 103, Number 10, October 2023, pp. 69-75. That particular book was also published anonymously, but is considered to have been penned by George Arnold.

Anyway, this is going to take some detective work to chase down its heritage accurately. Thanks for mentioning it; I enjoy pursuing mysteries!

Thomas Henry

And a big thank-you to RiffRaff, GazelleR, Frank, Julie and Topper2 for the great suggestions. I did indeed take these to heart and ordered up a storm from used book dealers over the past couple of weeks.

I picked up several Rigney books, and then realized he was the artist for Royal Road to Card Magic.

Is there any better way to spend money and pleasurable time than on books?

Thomas Henry

I feel this entry really belongs in this discussion, but I honestly don't know if it fits within the date range requested.

I'm referring to the wonderful soft cover printed for public distribution series by Bob Longe.
Fine line drawings and clear, easy to follow text. Sterling Publishing Co. New York (circa 1992?)

What do you think?

Yes, Julie, they are indeed worth mentioning as books for the general public, but containing lots of top-flight material. I think I have everything by Longe in my personal library. I've cited him fairly often in various articles.

Most of his books fall in the 1990-2000 era, and don't forget that he also had a One-Man Parade in The Linking Ring, Volume 81, Number 9, September 2001, pp. 81-99.

One failing, however, is that in my opinion Longe wasn't the best when it came to crediting. There are a number of suspicious items in his books...

Thomas Henry

Here's another Too-Good-For-Muggle-Retail Shelf Space book. It's the soft bound Secrets of the Astonishing Executive by Bill Herz with Paul Harris. Published by Avon Books, a division of the Hearst Corp. N.Y. 183 pages w. illustrations (copyright 1991).

Plenty of "endorsements", too, but I recall many in the magic community being unhappy that such valuable "secrets" were being made available to muggles. Many of the effects were simply updated presentations of much older magic with an ocasional dose of newer material.

IMO this publication achieves it's goal (to promote the authors' services) and just MIGHT deserve a place in this listing...

Did anybody mention Bruce Elliott's Classic Secrets of Magic? From Magicpedia:

Classic Secrets of Magic is a compendium of some of the greatest effects in magic at the time, released by a mainstream publisher.

A few notable names that appear in the book are Dai Vernon, Jay Marshall, Lee Noble, Walter Gibson,Joe Berg, Cy Endfield, Charlie Miller and Roy Benson.

It contains card revelations; the rice bowls; a wine glass production; paddle move work, including Dr. Sachs' Dice Routine; versions of the Four Ace trick; the Miser's Dream; Egg Bag; Chink-a-Chink; effects with razor blades, matches and billiard balls. It also includes Elliott's version of the Ambitious Card, Charlie Miller's cups and balls and Roy Benson's bowl routine.[1]

Some magicians were not happy at time for his "exposure". The book even had a "read and return guarantee" promotion. However, the promotion was not national. It was done through the mail, with the mailing list given to Harper's by Elliott.[2]

Reviewed in Genii 1953 February.

The Ireland Yearbooks are usually fun to read!
https://geniimagazine.com/wiki/index.php......Yearbook

Great material, but these are/were not made available to non-magicians through public retail (non-magic related) businesses.