Fresno magic club

Rice’s Encyclopedia of Silk Magic is the landmark reference work devoted to magic with silks and handkerchiefs. Harold R. Rice’s original three volumes gather an enormous range of techniques, gimmicks, apparatus, routines, historical information, and practical advice from Rice and many other prominent magicians. The material progresses from basic preparation and handling to elaborate parlor and stage presentations.

Volume 1 begins with the history and care of silk, dyeing, folding methods, and ways to produce, vanish, change, and transpose both single silks and large quantities. It covers methods using bare hands, clothing, pulls, pockets, gimmicks, tables, boxes, wands, and other apparatus. 

Volume 2 concentrates on penetrations, escapes, color changes, dyeing effects, reel work, reel-less methods, and the Twentieth Century Silks plot. It includes both fundamental principles and many complete routines contributed by working professionals. 

Volume 3 covers Sympathetic Silks, Blendo effects, comedy or “naughty” silks, Silk and Egg routines, effects with soup plates and candles, opening routines, and the Japanese Hank Box. 

A later Volume 4, written by Mark E. Trimble, revisits and modernizes material from the first three volumes while adding silk loads and steals, children’s magic, Warren Stephens’s work, further dyeing information, and an extensive cumulative index. It complements Rice’s work but is not authored by Rice himself. 

Taken together, the books function as both a teaching course and an encyclopedic research collection. They cover nearly every major branch of traditional silk magic, from small handlings suitable for intimate audiences to large productions and apparatus routines intended for formal stage performance.