The Art of Magic

About this book

A coin disappears from one hand and returns from nowhere. A card is named before it is chosen, while an ordinary movement hides the precise work of a practised magician.

T. Nelson Downs, with John Northern Hilliard, explains methods of theatrical conjuring in a substantial illustrated manual. Cards, coins, apparatus and elaborate flourishes receive detailed attention. Published in 1909, the book belongs to the age when magicians guarded their methods and competed to invent new effects. Its pleasure lies in discovering the ingenuity hidden inside a performance that appears effortless.