This guide is written in an unusual style, a conversational style, where each lesson starts with "Dear Mr. Smith", like a letter to a fictional student. This feature makes it a very readable and valuable course. In the introduction Jonson writes:
The guide is presented to the reader in the form of a course of personal instruction and the majority of the sleights and tricks are described according to the manner in which I have myself performed them. A number of individual touches and personal inventions have been introduced which I consider to be improvements on previously published methods. I have tried throughout to imagine that I was speaking to the reader as to an actual pupil, believing with Tristam Shandy that "Writing when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation."
- Lesson 1: On magic in general and sleight-of-hand in particular - some definitions - how to vanish a coin - the Flat Transfer
- Lesson 2: The Palm-proper - the Palm Transfer - the Jonson Palm Transfer
- Lesson 3: Le Tourniquet
- Lesson 4: On Palming and Apparent Transfers - the Finger-palm Transfer - the Palm Transfer - the Roll Palm - the Palm Steal
- Lesson 5: The Melting Coin - on Patter
- Lesson 6: List of Properties - the Six Coin Trick
- Lesson 7: The Finger-palm Fall - the Cap and Pence
- Lesson 8: A Test of Nerve
- Lesson 9: The Cups and Balls
- Lesson 10: The Torn and Restored Cigarette Paper
- Lesson 11: The Torn and Restored Paper
- Lesson 12: The Billiards Ball Trick and its sleights
- Lesson 13: With a silk handkerchief - the Roll palm - the Colour Change - the Soup-plate Trick
- Lesson 14: The Four Coins - the Back-palm and the Coin Roll
- Lesson 15: Conclusion
1st edition 1945, 95 pages; 1st digital edition 2018, 75 pages.
word count: 30657 which is equivalent to 122 standard pages of text
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