125 Card Tricks and Sleight of Hand

From the same publishers who brought you material from Herrmann, Thurston and Heller comes a comprehensive collection of card tricks. Effects range from self-working wonders to more involved routines, but don’t be fooled by the concise descriptions and occasionally antiquated patter suggestions — plenty of the tricks in this book will still baffle twenty-first-century audiences.

Historians of magic will be interested to discover a hundred-year-old precursor to Paul Harris’s “Solid Deception” under the heading “To produce a mouse from a pack of cards,” while magicians seeking to add a touch of nostalgia to their acts will undoubtedly find lots to work with in the quaint phrasing employed in the trick titles and explanations — a magical change becomes a “prestidigitorial metamorphosis”, for example, and spectators are invited to inspect cards by means of the charming phrase: “You will perceive any of them will bear examination.” After the tricks comes a brief overview of cheating methods, which includes a selection of fascinating anecdotes from the gaming table.