Biographies & History in Magic & Conjuring: page 5

Being a record of his experience as a white slave; a soldier in the Union Army; a professional gambler; a patron of the turf; a variety theater and minstrel manager; and, finally, a convert to the Murphy Cause, and to the Gospel of Christ.

This book is an illustration of this paragraph by S.W. Erdnase:

We know how they did it! The Piddington's were a 1949 husband and wife telepathy act who seemed able to transmit their thoughts to each other, even across vast distances. They could do this without talking.

Finally, the unfathomable mystery behind the world's most baffling telepathy act is revealed after 70 years of silence. Martin T Hart takes us on a fascinating and detailed journey into the lives of 'The Amazing Piddingtons' and deep inside the cunning methods that fooled a global generation. To this day no magician or scientist has ever discovered how Sydney was able to transmit his thoughts...

1920's film footage plus booklet revealing the closely-guarded secrets of the Indian Cups and Balls, the Mango Tree effect and much more. Together with attempts at the Indian Rope Trick plus bonus footage of Kuda Bux doing the Fire Walk.

Here is some amazing 1920's film footage capturing street magicians at work with some of the great Indian classics that are so rarely seen by Westerners. Much of the material on this download DVD (it is accompanied by an exciting musical track) is explained in the 40-page PDF (to download it see your digital shelf).

You will see great performances of the...

Martin Breese spent a substantial amount of time to piece together routines and information about Al Koran with the help of many of his friends, people who worked with Al Koran in some form or another, information on audio recordings, magazine articles and many other bits and pieces of information. Originally published in 1983, but revised by Martin Breese before his untimely death in 2012.

The ebook contains virtually every Al Koran effect as performed on TV. It analysis the effect and the method, then provides the exact words of patter as used by Al Koran.

There is a listing of all...

"Mark is one of the truly interesting characters in the world of showbusiness. He has a brilliant yet wicked sense of humour, and is often misunderstood by his peers. As someone who has known him for much of his life, I consider him to be a man of incredible talent as both a performer and grafter [demonstrator]. He is extremely resourceful, and is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to magic and other branches of entertainment. His life is truly one of mystery and intrigue, and he is a wonderful raconteur as will be seen in the pages of this masterpiece. I would consider Mark to be a true showman, and...

For the first time explains and demonstrates the great secret of her marvelous power.

In this autobiography, Lulu Hurst tells her rise to fame and fortune by performing acts of incredible strength on stage. She does this with personal recollections as well as quoting from various newspaper reports. At the time she performed many attributed her strength to some as of yet unknown or unexplainable force. But she had no unusual strength or the aid of any special force. She cleverly used mechanical principles as well as showmanship to make it appear she had super-human strength. In the second...

Indian Conjuring is an illustrated guide to Indian magic tricks by Major L. H. Branson, a British officer in the British Indian Army and magician. It includes explanations and step-by-step instructions for a variety of magic tricks that the author came across while serving in colonial India during the early twentieth century.

• CHAPTER I: A Comparison
• CHAPTER II
• The Cup And Balls
• CHAPTER III: The Bamboo-Sticks
• The Ring On The Stick
• CHAPTER IV: The Glass Box
• CHAPTER V: The Bowl Of Rice
• CHAPTER VI: A Rope Trick
• The Swastika
• The Egg Bag
• CHAPTER VII: The Dancing Duck
• CHAPTER VIII:...

A silent film record of Dai Vernon's visit to Britain in 1958.

If you have only read about the Professor Dai Vernon but never seen him in real life, then here is your chance for a glimpse into what he was like. You will see him sightseeing and you will see him perform several of his feature routines such as the Symphony of the Rings, card production, color change, wand spin vanish and more.

• Portsmouth: H.M.S. Victory and Dicken's Birthplace
• Polo at Cowdrey Park
• Stratford-on-Avon
• Fellow Magicians
• Leipzig's Card Levitation
• Card Production
• The Symphony of the Rings
• Colour Change
• Wand spin Vanish
• Jumping Jack
• Charlie Miller's Diminishing Cards ...

"In all the world of magic, I don't think you could find a fairer, squarer person than Lewis" - Dai Vernon, Genii December 1974.

"As I look at the literary scene of magic today, the name of one man stands out above all the rest and the owner of that name is my old friend Lew Ganson." - Peter Warlock, Genii, December 1974.

Martin Breese writes in the original description of these tapes:

This is volume 2 of The Ganson Story, recorded by Martin Breese to capture some of the essence that made Lewis Ganson the great writer of magic literature that he was.

(Here you will find Volume 1.)

runtime: 1 hour

During the settlement of the Wild West, entertainers followed along the trails to provide the very much needed distraction from the grueling voyage. This ebook describes their circumstances and stories.

Originally this work was published as miniature book.

1st edition 1999; digital version 22 pages

Leo Behnke worked for many years for Paulson, a playing card manufacturer. He describes in this ebook the history of playing card production up to the process that is used for todays cards. He also describes in detail the 9 editions of the Magic Castle cards and how one can identify them.

Beyond the interesting historical and technical descriptions Leo is offering, this information can also be quite helpful in creating a script or interesting line of presentation for a trick or routine.

The contents of this ebook was presented at a Magic Collectors meeting in Las Vegas, April 8 2005. ...

Ken Brooke was known throughout the world of magic. He was a magic dealer who achieved such a reputation for reliability and quality that there are thousands of magicians throughout the world, amateur, and professional who bought almost every trick he produced. Visitors from every country in the world made a beeline for his studio within minutes of arriving in London because just to visit Ken Brooke was an experience not to be missed. In partnership with Frank Farrow, he built the Ken Brooke Magic Place into a magical institution second to none. Considered by many to be the greatest magical...

Life, Magic and The Forks Hotel. For nearly 40 years Karl worked his magic behind the bar of the famed Forks Hotel in Buffalo, NY. Magicians from all over the world would flock to the bar to see Karl and Eddie Fechter work. Many magicians got their start at the Forks. In this 45 minute interview Karl talks about how he got his start in magic, how he met Eddie Fechter, The Forks hotel, how the FFFF convention got started and more, all while telling some great stories. This is a great tale of magic history.

Once again Goodliffe provides a stimulating introduction to another archive series recording. This time the subject is Kalanag - Master Illusionist.

The live recordings from Sim Sala Bim have been drawn from various sources. Without the marvelous introduction by Goodliffe this recording would simply be a record of the past but now, Kalanag lives again. Goodliffe was the first British magician who was allowed to see Kalanag's show from backstage.

Goodliffe starts with a short introduction on Helmut Schreiber, aka Kalanag, including some of his Nazi background, accusations, and counterpoints....

If he'd had a touch of larceny in him, he could have been the number one card sharp of all time. Instead, the author of these fabulous memoirs, born to a mother who considered gambling the "devil's tool," puts his extraordinary gifts to far different purpose.

He has used his incredible gambling sense, his miraculously dexterous fingers, his brilliant mathematical mind, his fascination with carnival and gambling life, to become America's number one authority on gambling and odds.

He was the greatest practitioner and analyst of card and dice sleight of hand. His artistry impressed FDR as...

The Amazing World of John Scarne holds revelations and experiences in gambling, magic, carnival and show business; together with startling disclosures about hypnotism, extra-sensory perception and other mental effects.

The once world's number one expert on gambling tells in this no-punches-pulled, startlingly frank book the whole inside story of gambling, and reveals all the dodges, gimmicks and tricks used by cheaters at dice, cards, roulette and other games of chance. His sensational revelations extend also to magic and escape tricks, to the chicaneries of carnivals and even to the blasting...

This is a wonderfully readable and fascinating description of magic and its history. Written by one of the scholars of magic - John Mulholland. Ben Robinson, the expert on John Mulholland whom he researched for more than 30 years, writes in his introduction to this ebook:

This work explores the history, meaning, and uses of playing cards.

From the foreword:

John Henry Pepper took a projection invention of Henry Dircks, called The Ghost, with his permission, and made it practical so that it could more easily be performed. He earned a lot of money staging it. Even though Dircks did not want any payments from Pepper, there was a falling out between the two because the invention became known as Pepper's Ghost. Dircks wanted to have his name associated with it. This prompted Dircks to write The Ghost. Pepper's answer to that publication and dispute came almost 30 years later in this work The True History of the Ghost.

He also includes the history and working of Metempsychosis...

Here is one of magic's most fascinating personalities giving the secrets of how he achieved everything that every young magician would wish to achieve. How magic earned him a luxury cruise ship, a luxury private airplane and stardom on TV, the theater and many movies.

John takes us back to his early days and tells how his career actually started when he produced an egg from the pocket of a young friend whilst at Sunday School. You'll hear how a little bit of magical-style misdirection got him his first big break teaching Clark Gable card moves for a film; Clarke fluffed it all and Calvert...

This is the second volume of John Calvert's Story. Sit back, relax, and listen to a life full of magic. Learn from one of the greatest and most successful magicians of all time.

(See here for Volume 1.)

This is a licensed reproduction of the famous Magicassette and MagiCD series created by Martin Breese - now owned by Lybrary.com.

A Sampling of categorized magical collectibles. Jim Kleefeld is a magic collector and writes for the M.U.M., the official organ of the S.A.M.

The Eclectic Collector will present to you a set of chapters that each delineate collectible artifacts in a category. The categories are a broad mix and the artifacts will vary in number. In some categories there are so many good examples, ten did not seem sufficient. In other categories, there are so few examples, that finding ten is extremely difficult.

Each chapter includes several photos of objects from Jim's collection within the category. These...

Houdini wrote a very nasty book about Robert-Houdin claiming that Robert-Houdin stole many tricks and was in reality not as great a magician as he usually is portraid. Jean Hugard sets with this book the record straight and reveals Houdini's fabricated arguments. Houdini's unmasking of Robert-Houdin was just a revenge on Robert-Houdin's family and had little to do with reality. But you can find out for yourself and read The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin. Houdini's Unmasking originally appeared serialized in Jean Hugards magazine Hugard's Magic Monthly.

Published as part of "Hugard's Magic Monthly" beginning with volume 15, number 1, June 1957; 78 pages; PDF 48 pages....