... most of the material in this book consists of effects which were intended to appear in Abracadabra. Government restrictions on the use of paper for new periodicals delayed publication of the weekly, and so I decided to release some of the best material in book form.
Most of the effects which follow are my own originalities, but for the benefit of those readers who dislike my ideas intensely, a number of contributed effects by certain magical celebrities have been inserted at intervals, the idea being that, just as the reader is losing patience, a really good effect appears to save the book from being a complete flop.
