The Modern Conjurer

"The Modern Conjurer," by C. Lang Neil, explaining the tricks of such masters of conjuring as Maskelyne, Trewey, Bertram, Patrice, Kennard, and others is published by the J. B. Lippincott Company. Four hundred pictures from photographs of actual tricks are included in the book. The same firm publishes "Romance of Modern Invention," an account of airships, submarines, sun-motors, dirigible torpedoes, mono railways, telautographs, together with many anecdotes, by Archibald Williams, illustrated.

From the Notes and News section of the New York Times, Nov. 22, 1902.

The 1937 American reprint of The Modern Conjurer, which is the subject of this review, is substantially the same in content as the first edition which was published in England in 1903. It was then hailed as one of the most important works on magic ever published, and it remains just that today. It was produced with the cooperation of such notables as J. N. Maskelyne, Felicien Trewey, Charles Bertram, Paul Valadon, T. Nelson Downs, Ellis Stanyon, and several other accomplished performers who posed for the hundreds of photographic reproductions which illustrate the text. Incidentally, we believe that this was the first book to make extensive use of photographs to show the actual presentation of tricks by expert magicians-though T. Nelson Downs' Modern Coin Manipulation, published in 1900, included a few dozen pictures of this kind.

The last hundred pages of this book are not likely to appeal strongly to readers who are interested primarily in conjuring. About a third of this space is used to explain parlor tricks and puzzles, and the other two-thirds are given to expositions of Plate-Spinning by Mr. Maskelyne, Chapeaugraphy and Shadowgraphy by M. Trewey, and Paper-Folding by Mr. Stanyon. Persons who think of these "arts" as being in some way related to magic may value this part of the book for the information it imparts, but others will probably be interested chiefly in the many pictures of these three men whose names are so well known in the field of conjuring.

But of magic itself, there is enough and to spare, and it is magic of a rare type. So far as we know, there is no other place in the literature of conjuring where one can find detailed explanations of the pet tricks of Charles Bertram, who performed for British royalty so often that he was known as "The King's Conjurer," or of the sleights of Paul Valadon, who co-starred with Kellar for several seasons and was announced by him as "the greatest exponent of pure sleight-of-hand in this or any other age." Bertram's contributions to this book include what we regard as unquestionably the best descriptions in print of "the pass" and "card palming," and detailed instructions for doing The Cards Up The Sleeve, The Diminishing Cards, The Four-Ace Trick, The Aerial Mint, The Cups and Balls, and The Billiard Ball Trick - 55 pages and 87 illustrations in all. Fourteen pages and 34 halftone cuts are employed to explain the fine card manipulations for which Valadon was rightly famous.

But we have told only part of the story. There are explanations of The Rising Card Trick, The Thurston Rising Cards, The Cards from Pocket to Pocket, The Sun and Moon Trick, The Handkerchiefs and Soup Plates, The Chinese Rings, The Mutilated Parasol, and other first-class feats which are described interestingly and thoroughly with scores of illustrations.

Before us, as we write are the first and last editions of The Modern Conjurer. The American reprint is less handsome than its English predecessor. We understand that it was printed from the original plates which are now, in certain instances, somewhat the worse for wear, so that the impressions are less perfect than when the plates were new. However, the publisher has used excellent paper and good ink, and the result will satisfy anyone who is not unduly fussy about perfection in printing. Also, this 386-page volume is plainly but substantially bound in cloth. We ourselves are happy to own a copy of the first edition because it is a finer piece of bookmaking than the 1937 edition. But the latter should be in the library of every serious student of magic who cannot secure a copy of the earlier edition, which is now exceedingly scarce.