Subject: Stage Magic
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Rune’s World
SYNOPSIS: Rune’s World: The Magic of Rune Klan is Joshua Jay’s presentation of the close-up and comedy magic of Danish performer Rune Klan. The book is intentionally unconventional: part instructional manual, part examination of Rune’s creative philosophy, and part graphic novel. Its unifying idea is that Rune develops each routine around the desired audience experience, allowing…
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Phoenix Series
SYNOPSIS: The Phoenix: Issues 1–300 is the complete run of the influential biweekly magic periodical published from January 1942 through February 1954. Walter B. Gibson helped establish and initially edit the magazine with Bruce Elliott, who became its principal editor during the run. Conceived as a successor in spirit to Theodore Annemann’s The Jinx, each compact four-page…
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Offbeat
SYNOPSIS: Offbeat is a collection of sixteen audience-tested routines and nine essays drawn from Nick Diffatte’s working repertoire as a professional comedy magician. Rather than presenting a large assortment of undeveloped ideas, the book focuses on practical pieces that Diffatte has refined through repeated performances for real audiences. Each routine includes the necessary handling, preparation, scripting,…
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My Best
SYNOPSIS: My Best: The Best Tricks from the Best Brains in Magic is a large anthology edited by J. G. Thompson Jr., bringing together 193 tricks and routines contributed by 115 professional and amateur magicians. Contributors include Theodore Annemann, J. B. Bobo, John Booth, Paul Curry, Dariel Fitzkee, Martin Gardner, Walter Gibson, Jean Hugard, George Kaplan,…
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Modern Magic
SYNOPSIS: Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring is Professor Hoffmann’s foundational instructional work on nineteenth-century magic. Designed as a progressive course, it begins with the magician’s wand, table, costume, secret pockets, and basic principles of deception before teaching sleight of hand and complete routines with cards, coins, watches, rings, handkerchiefs, dice, cups…
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Later Magic
SYNOPSIS: Later Magic is the third major instructional work in Professor Hoffmann’s classic series of Victorian conjuring books. It expands beyond sleight of hand into the practical machinery, clothing, hidden assistants, tables, servantes, pulls, clips, traps, changing devices, and other apparatus used by professional magicians of the period. The book contains extensive sections on the conjurer’s…
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Mark Wilson’s complete Course in Magic
SYNOPSIS: Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic is a broad, illustrated introduction to the major branches of practical magic. Organized as a progressive course, it teaches fundamental techniques before applying them to a large collection of routines with cards, coins, money, ropes, silks, billiard balls, sponge balls, cups and balls, everyday objects, mental effects, and larger…
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Making Magic
SYNOPSIS: Making Magic gathers 60 of Martin Lewis’s favorite routines developed over roughly five decades of performing, creating, lecturing, and publishing. The collection emphasizes practical, audience-tested magic rather than experimental ideas, with most of the material designed for parlor and stage performance and a substantial closing section devoted to close-up magic. Lewis explains not only the…
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Hugard’s Magic Monthly
SYNOPSIS: How to Develop a Super-Power Memory by Harry Lorayne is a classic guide to memory training that teaches practical techniques for remembering names, faces, numbers, speeches, appointments, lists, and other everyday information. Using Lorayne’s association and visualization methods, the book demonstrates how anyone can dramatically improve their memory through practice. Although not a magic book,…
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Greater Magic Library
SYNOPSIS: The Greater Magic Library is one of the most comprehensive and influential works ever published on the art of conjuring. Based on John Northern Hilliard’s original manuscript and completed after his death by Jean Hugard and Carl Waring Jones, the work compiles the knowledge of many of the greatest magicians of the early twentieth century…
