Magical Masterpieces
by Louis Nikola

The most famous invention of Nikola is his card system, which is described in The Nikola Card System and in an abbreviated version in Encyclopedia of Card Tricks. Cards are not the only area Nikola excelled in.

From the inside cover: Magical Masterpieces is no mere fanciful title. It is an apt description of a selection from the accumulated repertoire of a practical magician whose outstanding characteristic is the painstaking perfection and stamp of individuality of all his productions. It is safe to say that if a new book of magic provides only one workable and suitable addition to the reader's store it is a sound investment. The magician who cannot find many more than one acceptable item herein must indeed be hard to please. A wealth of valuable material is offered. This is not a book for idle reading alone, although even as such it is an entertainment in itself. It is a book for reading and reading again and oft repeated reference. It is a store-house of ideas to be placed in the magician's library and taken out from time to time for reference. Today he may find something for immediate addition to his programme. A year hence, two years hence, many years hence, he may still find something new. If he reads between the lines, he will not only absorb new ideas, he will learn something of the writer's secret of developing ideas and acquire habits of thought that will enable him to do likewise. Unhampered by confinement to a single type, the keynote of the volume is variety, and its contents range from subtle sleight-of-hand tricks without visible appliances to elaborate mechanical devices of extreme intricacy and some entirely new suggestions in the way of self-contained illusions.

1st edition, 1934, Will Goldston; 256 pages.

1. Inside cover
4. The Feast of Lanterns - Frontispiece
7. Introduction
9. The Disappearing Cloak
13. A Disappearing Walking Stick
14. Fire and Water
17. Catching a Card on a Knife Point
24. A Treacle Trick
25. Card Cricket
31. Magic Photography
39. A Transforming Card Table
43. Dyeing Silks
49. "Bunglo"
54. Dyeing Silks. Ne Plus Ultra
59. The Great Lemon
67. A Ring and An Orange
69. A Ring and A Dove
73. With A Watch
79. The Nest of Boxes
84. A New Method in the Smoke Trick
87. The Incorrigible Cigars
97. A Super Rice Bowls Trick
110. How I Saw the Great Indian Rope Trick
111. The Truth? About the Indian Rope Trick
112. Transit of Wine
118. The Recipe for Diamonds
123. Off With His Head
128. An Extemporised Drum Production
134. Another Drum Load
136. Optical Delusion
143. The Power of Suggestion
146. A Message From Mars
157. Marvellous Addition
164. A Magic Spell
171. Reading By Touch
172. Patriotic Drill
177. Flying Colours
182. On The Line
185. Transposing Milk and Sugar
187. The Topsy Turvy Tea Table
191. Under The Pillar Box
195. Tricky Tennis
201. Aerial Angling
206. Hoffmann's Bullet Trick
213. The Feast of Lanterns
222. The Junior Feast of Lanterns
224. The Housing Problem
237. The Rajah's Pearls
240. Aqua Vitae
243. Squeezed To A Jelly
249. What Happened To Smith Minor