Henry HayRezensionen

A collection of New Englanders

Interestingly, the author's first name is not included on the printed book! Would a magic book by a woman not sell?

A lavishly illustrated new edition of the classic handbook for conjurers is designed to help magicians of all levels, from beginning to advanced, hone their skills at legerdemain and develop new and exciting illusions to baffle the mind. This book helps you prove that the hand is quicker than the eye, and that the ingenuity of a master magician can defy the most suspicious scrutiny.

This book by Henry Hay is a one-volume encyclopedia of magic. It covers the whole range of magic as a performing art from A to W. The articles are illustrated with forty-two black-and-white photographs and 350 line drawings.

Within its pages, the reader will find all kinds of articles about magic. Are you looking for the chronicles of magic? For biographical sketches of great performers? For literature about magic? For effective business and publicity methods? For presentation hints for different kinds of magic shows (for example, children's shows, night-club shows, comedy shows, and stage shows)? Henry Hay has researched the field of magic to answer questions like these.

Be prepared to do a lot of page-flipping while reading articles in this book. Many topics cannot be explored in depth without following numerous cross-references. For example, the article on APPARATUS consists entirely of cross-references. First, you will find fifty cross-references to the varieties of apparatus used by magicians, whose equipment includes hidden gimmicks, visible fakes, and numerous other props. After that, you will find twenty cross-references to tricks using apparatus, such as, the Bird Cage, the Chinese Wands, the Multiplying Billiard Balls, and the Rice Bowls. The article on ILLUSIONS consists of a very brief definition of what an illusion is, and is not, followed by twenty-six cross-references both to illusions, such as, levitations and stage settings, and to illusionists, such as, Houdini, Thurston, and Blackstone. The article on IMPROMPTU EFFECTS consists of twenty-nine cross-references to close-up tricks using familiar props, such as, card tricks, coin tricks, mind-reading tricks, ring tricks, and handkerchief tricks, followed by a bibliography of standard works on the subject from such writers as David Devant and Jean Hugard.

To get an inkling of the breadth of articles about magicians, here are the performers you can read about from A to C: ANDERSON (1814-1874), six generations of BAMBERGS (1760-1904), BELLACHINI (1828-1885), BLACKSTONE (1885-1965), BLITZ (1810-1877), BOSCO (1790-1863), BRESLAW (1726-1783), CARDINI (1895-1973), CHING LING FOO (1854-1918), CHUNG LING SOO (1861-1918), COMTE (1788-1859), and CULPITT (1877-1944). You can imagine the extensive list of performers who can be found as you progress through the remainder of the alphabet.

It takes Hay scarcely two pages to tell the HISTORY of magic, which he divides into three periods. The first period starts with the beginning of recorded history and ends in the mid-eighteenth century. The performers of that era were mostly itinerant showmen performing outdoors. The one trick that can be found throughout this era is the Cups and Balls. The second period extends from the mid-eighteenth century through the second half of the nineteenth century. This was the era of trap doors, mechanical pistons, automata, and mirrors, when magicians who dressed in long, flowing robes performed their art in theaters with elaborate staging. The third period, the modern era, began in the second half of the nineteenth century. This is when magicians began to abandon their dependence on mechanical contraptions and flowing robes. They became illusionists, manipulators, escape artists, mentalists, and close-up artists -- actors pretending to be magicians, if you please. The one trick that can be found throughout the history of magic is the Cups and Balls. The one prop that pervades all eras is the magic wand. To learn more about the history of magic from Hay's Cyclopedia, read the biographical sketches of the famous magicians.

This is not a book for the young or for beginners in magic. It is not tutorial in nature. It is a reference book. Magicians, professional or amateur, who are already familiar with magical props, sleights, misdirection, and the like, will be the chief beneficiaries of this book. This book will do two things for them. First, it will make them better informed practitioners of their art. Second, it will help them make discriminating purchases of magic tricks from vendors.

For excellent tutorials on magic for beginners, see Fun With Magic (1943) by Joseph Leeming, The Amateur Magician's Handbook (1950) by Henry Hay, Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic (1975), and The Practical Encyclopedia of Magic (2004) by Nicholas Einhorn.

As a young teenager, I bought my copy of The Amateur Magician's Handbook soon after it was published in 1950. In those days, I did magic shows for schools, churches, lodges, and children's parties. I was always on the lookout for affordable tricks that I could add to my act. This book was a godsend.

Part One of the book deals with hand magic using cards, coins, balls, thimbles, and cigarettes. Part Two deals with mentalism, or what Hay called "Head Magic." Part Three deals with apparatus magic. Besides the standard stuff, Hay writes about silks, small gimmicks, and fakes, such as, thumb tips, pulls, and hooks. Part Four is devoted to the mental magic of Ted Annemann (1907-1942), who was famous for inventing and refining many of the standard mentalism routines that continue to be used by magicians today. See Practical Mental Magic (1983) by Theodore Annemann. Part Five deals with the prerequisites of platform magic: programming, stage management, and showmanship.

My Favorite Chapter. For my own act, I especially took account of Chapter 17, "Standard Stuff," that describes the platform apparatus that belonged in every platform magician's trunk in the 1950s: (1) Cut and Restored Rope; (2) The Egg Bag; (3) The Passe-Passe Bottle and Glass; (4) Liquid Tricks, such as, The Lota, The Rice Bowls, The Funnel, and The Ching Ling Foo Water Can; (5) Productions, such as, Hat Productions, The Tambourine, The Carpet of Baghdad, The Jap Hank Box, and The Organ Pipes; (6) The Chinese Wands; and (7) The Linking Rings. Over time, I was able to include selections from each of these "standards" in my repertory. For example, The Cut and Restored Rope, The Egg Bag, The Lota, The Rice Bowls, The Funnel, The Jap Hank Box, The Chinese Wands, and the Linking Rings all became regular features in my magic act.

The glossary at the end of the Amateur Magician's Handbook is as practical as the body of the book. More than an alphabetical list of technical terms, Hay took advantage of his glossary to explain several tricks and illusions not mentioned elsewhere in his book. For example, the glossary tells about the Changing Bag, the Dancing Handkerchief (the Dancing Handkerchief was the showpiece of Harry Blackstone's act, about which see Chapter 19 in Big Secrets (1989) by William Poundstone for an exposé of the Dancing Handkerchief in a Bottle, David Copperfield's version of Blackstone's Dancing Handkerchief), the Sliding Die Box, Flash Paper, Levitations, the Mirror Principle, the Needle Trick (a cornerstone in Harry Houdini's act in which he appeared to swallow dozens of needles, followed by a length of thread, finally regurgitating them with all the needles neatly threaded), Running Gags, Sawing a Woman in Two, Spring Flowers, Sucker Effects, Substitution Trunk Trick, and You Do as I Do.

My Favorite Quote. "Always leave everybody wanting more."

Trivia. Henry Hay was the pen name of June Barrows Mussey.

Bottom Line. This book is a keeper.

Writings of early Yankees. Originally published as "We were New England".

I've got an old paperback copy of this that has been one of my best friends for a long time. I had this book long before I ever picked up a copy of Wilson's bigger, more comprehensive, and more workmanlike 'Complete Course in Magic'.
I love Hay's approach to magic. He doesn't just tell you 'how', he tells you 'why'. Read this book if you want to develop the attitude of a real magician.
Hay covers all kinds of magic: cards, coins, silks, and what have you. It's an excellent first magic book. And it's cheap.