This is an excellent magic book that deserves to be known more widely. Bruce Elliott wrote in the foreword:
This introduction to a noble and ancient kind of amusement will lead you as a primer should, from the easy to the more difficult. It stops short of the really difficult, again as a primer should. It helps you on the road to becoming, for better or worse, a magician.
For the better? Yes, for a way to enjoy yourself, to get a kick out of performing something that is out of the ordinary. For the worse? If this book serves its purpose, you will have set your faltering feet on the rocky road to magical hobbyism - and a thorny road it is. You will never be satisfied unless you are trying constantly to improve yourself and your technique. Your technique can cover anything from sleight of hand to stage presence, from patter to the construction of stage illusions. In other words, once the magic bug has really bitten you, a whole new world opens for you.
Presentation is rarely covered in books on magic. This book, by a talented performer, tells you about presentation. Tells you in a way that will teach you much, if you will but learn.
However, whether magic is to be your business or your hobby, we can truly say this book will make the learning easy. Much thought has gone into the description of the various effects that Greer Maréchal has written for you. Try them the way he has described them. See if you can reason out why he places the emphasis on what he does.
