For Magicians Only
by Robert Parrish

For Magicians Only, despite its title, is a book for the general reader. It will not appeal to many who are already conjurers, because the effects it describes are so slight. For the same reason, it will disappoint the purchaser who buys it on the strength of the dust-jacket "blurb" which reads: "Here's the book for every one who ever dreamed of pulling rabbits out of a hat or sawing a woman in two" - for he will find nothing of this sort described here! It is a well-printed, clothbound little book, with 112 pages of actual text, is illustrated with 57 explanatory diagrams and 20 humorous drawings, and explains 24 tricks and in addition a few sleights.

As we have already suggested, the tricks themselves are not at all sensational. There is, for example, a very small trick with a book of matches, to which seven pages are allotted (plus three more which analyze the misdirection that is involved). There are three after-dinner feats, one of which is the ancient Knife and Bits of Paper; the others are transposition stunts with a salt-shaker and whiskey-glass, and a walnut and kumquat, respectively. Four methods are given for "controlling" chosen cards; and seven card tricks are explained, of which the best are the discovery of a selected card by pushing a knife through the paper-wrapped deck, and a feat (called Hop, Skip, and Jump) which is reminiscent of Annemann's Eye-Popper Card Trick.

The five "psychic" demonstrations explained by Mr. Parrish include Billet Reading, a "Living and Dead" trick with a slate, a feeble two-person feat in "telepathy," and two others. The Torn and Restored Paper Napkin is explained, and there are several small tricks with coins and thimbles. A chapter entitled Large Tricks presents The Stretched Rope; The Cut and Restored Rope; a trick in which a small quantity of water passes from one Dixie cup to another; the "vanish" of a lemon from a tumbler and its reappearance in a napkin; and a production feat in which "a number of silk scarves, old correspondence, and even a light bulb" are extracted from a waste-basket that has been shown empty. The author also offers some advice on building individual tricks into short programs.

There are several short chapters that discuss "the fun of magic," describe contrasts in old and new types of equipment and styles of presentation, and tell something - though nothing like so much as the advertising and text profess - about misdirection. Those who are familiar with the writings of Robert Houdin, Professor Hoffmann, Edwin T. Sachs, David Devant, and Jean Hugard will learn with surprise that this is "the only book on magic that tells exactly how to keep the audience from seeing the 'mechanics' of performance" (as the dust-jacket claims), and that in this book "for the first time, all of the subtleties are included in the explanations" (as we are told on page 20). Because too much is claimed for it, and because it is not up to the high standard set by Mr. Parrish in his earlier books, For Magicians Only is a disappointment to this reviewer.