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The World's Best Book of Magic
by Walter Gibson

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The World's Best Book of Magic by Walter Gibson

This is an excellent but often overlooked primer on magic.

Excerpt from the introduction:

This book marked the culmination of a twelve-year period in which I contributed dozens of articles to magical magazines, conducted daily columns on puzzles and simple tricks, plus a weekly series of fifty magic lessons for Howard Thurston, then America's leading stage magician. In it, I covered all phases of magic then current, from simple tricks to large illusions, updating them to the present with an eye for the future.

Paul Fleming wrote:

We believe we have said enough to justify the statement, . . . that THE WORLD'S BEST BOOK OF MAGIC "has never received the recognition it deserves." But we have yet to mention what seems to us one of its chief points of interest and value - the personal comments of the author on what to do and what not to do, in performing certain sleights and tricks. Such advice may mean the difference between success and failure. Mr. Gibson is generous in giving the reader the benefit of his years of experience, both as a performer and an observer of other performers. The net result is a practical touch that is lacking in many books on magic.

  • INTRODUCTION
  • Foreword
  • Preface
  • The Romance of Magic
  • The Art of Misdirection
  • Classes of Magic
  • SECTION I Tricks Without Sleight of Hand or Apparatus
  • CHAPTER I Tricks with Pencil, Paper, and Figures
    1. The Mental Number
    2. His Favorite Figure
    3. Radio Telepathy
    4. A Written Addition
    5. The Counting Race
    6. Mystic Number Nine
    7. Seven Pellets
    8. The Spirit Message
  • CHAPTER II Magic with a Match-Box
    1. Finding the Heads
    2. Magnetic Matches
    3. The Balanced Match-Boxes
    4. Topsyturvy Matches
    5. Smash It!
    6. Striking Safety Matches
    7. Picking Up the Drawer
    8. A Magic Blow Out
    9. The Box on the Door
    10. Label Up!
    11. The Jumping Match
  • CHAPTER III Simple Coin Tricks
    1. A Simple Coin Vanish
    2. Vanishing Coin and Match-Box
    3. The Coin Fold
    4. The Improved Coin Fold
    5. The Coin in the Goblet
    6. The Coin in the Match-Box
    7. The Coin in the Lemon
    8. The Coin in the Roll
    9. The Coin Through the Hat
    10. Coins Through the Hat
    11. Coin, Hat and Glass
    12. The Balanced Coin
    13. Coin Balanced on Knife
    14. Always Heads
    15. The Coin in the Box
    16. The Vanishing Dime
    17. The Hang Ping Chien Coin Trick
  • CHAPTER IV Sorcery with String
    1. The String Through the Buttonhole
    2. The Knot on the String
    3. The Loop and the Finger
    4. The Disappearing Loop
    5. String on the Fingers
    6. The Tied Thumbs
  • CHAPTER V. Easy Card Tricks
    1. Mystic Court Cards
    2. Ten Pairs
    3. Eight Triplets
    4. The Baffling Card
    5. A Card Mystery
    6. Stop at the Card
    7. Counting the Same Number
    8. Pocket to Pocket
    9. Naming a Chosen Card
    10. The Self-Reversing Pack
    11. The Self-Dividing Pack
    12. Sympathetic Attraction
    13. The Lucky Joker
    14. Finding a Chosen Card
    15. Two Together
    16. The Clock Trick
  • CHAPTER VI Handkerchief Mysteries
    1. Stretching a Handkerchief
    2. The One Hand Knot
    3. Hands Together
    4. The Pencil in the Handkerchief
    5. Handkerchief Through the Wrist
  • CHAPTER VII Dinner Table Tricks
    1. Magnetic Sugar
    2. Magnetizing a Knife
    3. The Mystic Banana
    4. The Mystic Walnut
    5. An Orange and an Apple
    6. Moving the Glasses
  • CHAPTER VIII Tricks with Various Objects
    1. The Color Changing Balloon
    2. The Number on the Bill
    3. The Coin and the Glass Illusion
    4. The Glass and the Cane
    5. The Walking Hairpin
    6. The Ball on the String
    7. The Red Muslin Bands
  • SECTION II The Principles and Application of Sleight of Hand
  • CHAPTER I Sleight of Hand with Coins
    1. The French Drop and Improvements
    2. Palming a Coin
    3. Coin Changes
    4. Disappearing and Reappearing Coin
    5. The Flying Coin
    6. A Series of Coin Passes
    7. The Back Palm
    8. The Miser's Dream
    9. Coin Catching Extraordinary
    10. Three Coin Vanish
  • CHAPTER II Sleight of Hand with Thimbles
    1. Palming a Thimble
    2. The Open Hand Vanish
    3. Vesting a Thimble
    4. The Multiplying Thimble
  • CHAPTER III Sleight of Hand with Cards
    • A. PRELIMINARY SLEIGHTS
      1. False Shuffles and Cuts
      2. The Fan Pass
      3. Palming Cards
      4. Card Changes
      5. The False Count
      6. The Force
      7. The Side Steal
      8. Color Changes
    • B. SLEIGHT OF HAND TRICKS
      1. The Mystic Aces
      2. The Cards Up the Sleeve
      3. The Twenty Card Trick
      4. The Four Aces
      5. The Card in the Pocket
      6. Card Discoveries
    • C. ADVANCED SLEIGHTS AND FLOURISHES
      1. The Pass
      2. A New Pass
      3. The Back and Front Palm
    • Flourishes
      1. The Spring
      2. The Turnover
      3. The Catch
    • D. FURTHER CARD TRICKS
      1. Six Card Vanish and Production
      2. Production and Vanish
      3. Single Card Production
      4. The Card in the Cigarette
      5. The Card in the Orange
  • SECTION III Magic with Small Apparatus
  • CHAPTER I Card Tricks
    1. The Self-Forcing Pack
    2. The Self-Shifting Pack
    3. The Color Changing Pack
    4. The Revelation Pack
    5. The Short and Narrow Pack
    6. The Instanto Pack
  • CHAPTER II Coin Tricks
    1. The Coin Box
    2. The Vanishing Coin Bank
    3. The Coin Glass
    4. The Single Coin Vanisher
  • CHAPTER III Handkerchief Tricks
    1. The Handkerchief Pull
    2. The Color Changing Pull
    3. The Handkerchief and Wand
    4. The Finger-Tip
    5. Handkerchief Production (With Improvement)
  • CHAPTER IV Miscellaneous Tricks
    1. The Cigarette Vanisher
    2. Cigar and Cigarette Vanishes
    3. The Vanishing Pencil
    4. Torn and Restored Paper
    5. The X-Ray Clock
    6. The Divination Candles
    7. The Patriotic Rockets
  • SECTION IV Carl Brema's Exclusive Mysteries
    1. The Yogi Coin Box
    2. The Demon's Bars
    3. The Disc and String Trick
    4. Brema's Dollar Bill and Tube Trick
    5. The New Egg Production
    6. The Improved Cigarette Catcher
    7. The Cigarette Wand
    8. The Cigarette Tube
    9. The Sliding Coin Box
    10. The Silver Boxes
    11. The Devil's Ladder
    12. The Hindu Wand
    13. Brema's Confetti and Flower Bowls
    14. The Illusion Top Table
  • SECTION V Platform Magic
  • CHAPTER I. Black Art Tables
  • CHAPTER II Handkerchief Tricks
    1. The Passe Passe Handkerchiefs
    2. The Red Cross and the Stars and Stripes
    3. The Cylinder and the Glass
    4. The Patriotic Handkerchiefs
  • CHAPTER III Production Tricks
    1. The Wonder Screen
    2. The Wonder Cabinet
    3. The Breakaway Cabinet
    4. The Flag Vase
  • CHAPTER IV Miscellaneous Tricks
    1. The Sucker Die Box (With Improvements)
    2. Solid Through Solid
    3. The Vanishing Alarm Clock
    4. The Vanishing Bowl
    5. The New Rice Bowls
  • CHAPTER V Spirit Tricks
    1. The Rapping Hand
    2. The Improved Rapping Hand
    3. The Rapping Hand on the Board
    4. The Talking Skull
    5. The Rising and Falling Ball
    6. The Spirit Bell
    7. The Spirit Clock
    8. Spirit Seance in Full Light
  • SECTION VI Stage Illusions
    1. The Threefold Screen
    2. The Mummy Case
    3. The Japanese Cabinet
    4. The Cabinet of Proteus
    5. The Throne Illusion
    6. The Human Die Box
    7. The Shower Bath Illusion
    8. The Ladder Illusion
    9. The Spirit Cabinet
    10. Mephisto and Faust
    11. The Sword Cabinet
    12. The New Sword Cabinet
  • Conclusion

1st edition 1927, PDF 182 pages.
word count: 69245 which is equivalent to 276 standard pages of text


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