A Master of Magic tells of his wanderings through all the countries of the world and through some two score years of his life. And such a life! For Mr. Thurston has been no chartered tourist on the great swing around the circle, but a magnificent adventurer, a glamourous figure on the shining ways of Romance. How he has lived! And having lived— dreaming, working, mystifying, and ceaselessly wandering—this Ulysses of the Magic Wand tells his story as unselfconsciously as he lived it. And yet so compellingly that we humdrum folk who read must feel a friendly twinge of envy of the glorious adventure this man has made out of life.
Critics long since acclaimed him the outstanding wonder worker of his age. And time has already placed him among the hierarchy that includes the greatest figures of his craft—Comus, Torrini, Comte, Philippe, Robert-Houdin, Frikell, Compars, Alexander Herrmann, and Harry Kellar. In the years that he has been going up and down the world he has appeared before almost fifty millions of people. Truly an Olympic record! Whenever I think of it, this man whom I have known for so many years fades into almost a legendary figure, a sort of Pied Piper leading us, children all, back to the enchanted land of make-believe.
