Here you will find more than 50 card tricks including easy as well as difficult ones. The book includes a number of tricks from other prominent books. For example, we find tricks borrowed from Erdnase's Expert at the Card Table, and the last section is a partial translation of Kartenkünste by Ottokar Fischer.
An interesting little story is told by one of the old French kings. He asked a courtier to join in a game of cards. "Sire," replied the courtier, "I do not play cards." The king shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Then you are preparing for yourself a sad old age."
There is truth in this dictum even at the present day. Card games form a consolation and a source of enjoyment during the years of life when physical infirmities render more active pursuits impossible. But in old age one does not learn - one only remembers. Therefore, as the French king suggested, it is in the earlier years of life that one should acquire a knowledge of, and a liking for, card games.
With that knowledge and liking there comes, quite naturally, a similar knowledge of and liking for card tricks. Almost as long as games have been played with cards, tricks have been performed with them. It is quite possible that the man (or was it a woman?) who invented the first card game also invented the first card trick. Doubtless it was a very simple little trick. But it was the pioneer of thousands more elaborate. In this book will be found the best and the newest of these thousands.
