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A Magical Upbringing: Collected Letters and Articles from June Barrows Mussey
by Dagmar Mussey & June Barrows Mussey

$15

(3 reviews, 7 customer ratings) ★★★★

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A Magical Upbringing: Collected Letters and Articles from June Barrows Mussey by Dagmar Mussey & June Barrows Mussey

Purchase this ebook together with The Amateur Magician's Handbook and receive an immediate $10 discount!

If I ask: "Do you know June Barrows Mussey?" I get a blank stare. If I continue: "you know Henry Hay?" then suddenly the response is: "Certainly. He wrote The Amateur Magician's Handbook."

June Barrows Mussey, alias Henry Hay was a remarkable man who had a magical upbringing. Imagine, a boy of just 14 years old going on an international magic tour in the U.S. all by himself; a year later he went alone to Europe, the Dutch authorities made great trouble when he wanted to enter their country because they felt he was too young. His parents and particularly his mother supported his ambition and helped him with costumes, travel plans and the like. He always traveled with a typewriter because his parents wanted a letter every day. And he loved to write, he corresponded with one of the greatest magicians of all time T. Nelson Downs; later he became a friend and business partner of the great John Mulholland.

A Magical Upbringing brings Henry Hay closer through his letters, early articles and unpublished photos, and articles about him. June Barrows Mussey has done so much for magic although very little is known about him. The publication fills the gap. And you will find the author was even more remarkable than the books he wrote. Magic was not his only hobby, he had a wide range of interests, wrote several New England books and anthologies, worked as business journalist and copy writer.

You will read a foreword by his wife Dagmar Mussey, you will learn why there would have been no film The Prestige without Henry Hay and many more unpublished bits and pieces about June Barrows Mussey.

1st edition 2008; 131 pages.

  1. Acknowledgement
  2. Contents
  3. Foreword by Dagmar Mussey
  4. Introduction
  5. Magic Books Mussey Wrote, Translated or Published
  6. Letter #1 June to S.A.M.
  7. Tours Country On His Tricks
  8. Letter #2 Mable to Downs
  9. Letter #3 Mabel to CheeChee
  10. Letter #4 June to Downs
  11. The Travels of Hajji Baba (Letter of June to his parents)
  12. Letter #5 Mable to Chee Chee
  13. Letter #6 Mable to Chee Chee
  14. Letter #7 Mable to Chee Chee
  15. Hajji Baba The Magician
  16. The Magic of Magic
  17. Letter #8 June to Downs
  18. Letter #9 June to Downs
  19. Letter #10 June to Downs
  20. Letter #11 June to Downs
  21. Letter #12 June to Downs
  22. Letter #13 June to Downs
  23. Letter #14 June to Downs
  24. Why Do You Do Magic?
  25. German Magic --- Bavaria
  26. German Magic II: Munich-Stuttgart-Vienna
  27. Doing Magic for the Public
  28. Thomas Nelson Downs
  29. Chinese Magic In The West
  30. Magical English
  31. The Coins Vanish
  32. The Mussey Coin Roll Vanish
  33. The Big Visit
  34. Letters from Pauline Mulholland
  35. How I Got the Bug
  36. The Money Game
  37. Letter by Richard Hatch
  38. Swan Squawk
  39. A Man Of Mystery
  40. Revisiting the Henry Hay Home in 1988
  41. Barrows Mussey: Portrait of a Popularizer
  42. Letters From the Past
  43. Epilogue

word count: 50427 which is equivalent to 201 standard pages of text


Reviewed by Jim Alfredson
★★★★   Date Added: Friday 03 October, 2008

[This review was published in M-U-M, October 2008. Reproduced with permission of the Society of American Magicians.]

Gold from Hay

There are probably many who will scan this review topic and ask, "Who is J. Barrows Mussey?" and that is the reason Chris Wasshuber published this ebook. In his Introduction, Wasshuber notes that if you are a middle-aged American magician (or in my case, an elderly...) you will probably know part of the answer if one substitutes his pseudonym "Henry Hay." Mussey, as Hay, wrote a small number of magic books for beginners, two of which are arguably minor classics, Learn Magic (1947) and The Amateur Magician's Handbook (1950), the latter being the largest and best known. They are splendid introductory texts, as they concentrate on the important aspects of routining, presentation, and the like, rather than just showing the beginner how tricks are done. Mussey had a flair for getting across sophisticated principles to the beginner in a clear and simple manner. The books remain as fresh today, as they were when published.

Mussey's life was unconventional, to say the least. Born in 1910, he was a prodigy, graduating from high school at 14, and when he was but 13 — his mother not wanting him to enter college at this tender age — he began a tour of the eastern and mid-western United States clad in Persian costume and performing magic. His mother booked this tour by having family friends in various cities set up shows for him, saying, "He will learn self-reliance" from his travels. Mussey traveled alone, by train, and even in the palmy days of the 1920s it was a rather unusual, not to mention risky, experience for a kid — no matter how mature and intelligent. The highlight of the trip was two days spent at the home of his hero T. Nelson Downs, in Iowa. The following year, both alone and accompanied by his mother, he toured Europe and the Far East, and then entered Haverford College. After college, he went into the publishing business and, in 1950, availing himself of his linguistic abilities, he emigrated to Germany where he became an advertising consultant and American correspondent for Advertising Age. Mussey died in Germany in 1985.

It was Wasshuber's decision to republish The Amateur Magician's Handbook as an ebook for $25 that generated this book, explaining who Mussey was. This is done not by a biographical narrative, rather by means of 18 letters, 19 articles, 10 tricks, and two complete coin routines, all by or about Mussey. One cannot say that this is a biography of Mussey per se, but the material is most interesting and goes a long way toward sketching his fascinating life.

In point of criticism, one might say that a bit of editing wouldn't have hurt the project. Mussey's mother's letters, for example, are of great interest but contain much extraneous material. Because the articles have been gathered from many sources, and written at various times, there is repetition. The leaps from one topic to another may prove annoying to some readers. On the other hand, there is a great deal of interesting material here, and it's handy to have it gathered in one place.

The book is illustrated with photos and line drawings, and is available separately at $15, or if the Handbook is purchased with it, $30 for both. I read it with interest and pleasure.

[Please note that the stars given below were not provided by Jim Alfredson but were added by the Lybrary.com staff.]


Reviewed by Ben Robinson
★★★★★   Date Added: Saturday 23 August, 2008

I truly enjoyed A Magical Upbringing June Barrows Mussey because it answered many questions I had about the author of The Amateur Magician's Handbook, by far and away my favorite magic book of all. It produces an anecdotal history of firsthand meetings with such personalities as John Mulholland and T. Nelson Downs (among many others). We learn that Mulholland, during the Depression, was "not stirred from his house for less than a hundred dollars" and that T. Nelson Downs could second deal with one hand!

As well, Mussey himself comes across as a purveyor of many languages as he directs the reader in several reproduced articles to proper diction and elocution. The man toured as a child and attended college early and wrote one of the seminal texts of the 20th century. He was considered an authority, and was respected from a very early age. While there is still much more that can be known about this enigmatic Renaissance Man, this book will surely quench the thirst of the hungry acolytes who stand in awe of his work.

The man, his work, his performance and his writing stand tall above the internet age...a purer magic, where magic began and has the most power.


Reviewed by Grandpa Chet
★★★★★   Date Added: Thursday 21 August, 2008

Call it a labor of love to a book. And this is the book which reflects the man who begat the book we love. June Barrows Mussey was an even deeper man, a better magician, a better "understander" of people than we even suspected. Look behind the curtain and learn of the man who you knew as "Henry Hay." Not only will you find his life and his attitude fascinating, you'll find he teaches you, once again, how to become better at magic, entertaining, and at being a person.