Jay Sankey creates and performs some of the world's most original magic. Sankey Unleashed is a testament to Sankey's unmatched creative abilities. The book features and astonishing 81 creations, making it a mother load of magical miracles. In addition to powerful, direct card and coin magic, Sankey Unleashed details the work on tricks with keys, balls, pens, eggs, books, pencils, business cards, billiard chalk, markers, credit cards, and even tomatoes! With such a wide assortment of materials and such a staggering number of tricks described - at every skill level - Sankey Unleashed truly contains something for everyone. Highlights include: Nightcap - After signing his name on a card, the spectator tries to put the cap back on the marker, only to find that it is now a solid, cylindrical tube! Back in Time - a seemingly ordinary pick-a-card trick becomes a time traveling experience. A reality-shaking effect for the lay-public, and incredibly easy to do. Stretching It - in which a borrowed finger ring is visibly stretched to three times its length. It then visibly shrinks back to normal, and is returned to its lender. Leaving Home - a modern classic, and one that comes as close to real visual magic as possible. Spectators witness the magician visibly plucking a house key off the center of a loop of cord. Just as easily, and perhaps more visually, the key is thrown back on to the cord! These brief descriptions barely scratch the surface. Sankey Unleashed is jam-packed with magic you will learn, study and use.

Sankey Unleashed

Humor & Entertainment

Jon Racherbaumer, Earle Oakes (Illustrator)

Puzzles & Games

Squash Publishing

This book allows you a rare opportunity: to look over the shoulder of Eugene Laurant, one of the most popular, polished and successful entertainers of his day. Laurant Man of Many Mysteries is a biography full of show-biz stories, Wild West adventure, and mystery. In 1896, Eugene Laurant became a professional magician. 21 years earlier, as Eugene Greenleaf, he was born on the frontier, in the horse and buggy town that was Denver, Colorado. Billed as the "Man of Many Mysteries," Laurant spent almost 50 seasons on tour. His stage-filling magic show brought wonder and delight to millions of spectators across North America. The bulk of Laurant's career was spent not in major metropolitan centers, or hustling, bustling cities like New York. Unlike his contemporaries - Houdini among them - Laurant, for the most part, confined his routes to rural America. It was there that he made his mark. Eugene Laurant was, arguably, king of the small town showmen. Laurant carried a full compliment of assistants, livestock, baggage and thousands of pounds of equipment-the tools of mystery making-over the rough-and-tumble back roads of America. He logged millions of miles on the road. His greatest successes were made on the Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits, which enjoyed immense popularity between 1900 and 1920. During those years, Laurant headlined for the most prominent organization in the business, the Redpath Bureau. Drawing on Laurant's own unpublished writings, scrapbooks, and new research, this book paints a revealing and complete portrait of this early American magician. From his earliest dime-museum days, to Wild West adventure, vaudeville shows and much more, Laurant Man of Many Mysteries tells the tale.

Laurant: Man of Many Mysteries

Biographies & Memoirs

Gabe Fajuri

Arts & Literature

An essential title for every magician, The Encyclopedia of Rope Tricks is the only book of its kind. Magical genius Stewart James, over the course of 40+ years, compiled three volumes of the Encyclopedia of Rope Tricks. Now, for the first time, these classic works have been collected, newly edited, and combined in a single hardbound volume. Over the course of nearly 450 large-format pages, James describes every nuance of this fascinating branch of conjuring. Hundreds of effects are described. Puzzles share the pages with stage-filling illusions, legendary feats (like the fabled Indian Rope Trick), escapes, spirit effects, cut and restored tricks, penetrations, trick knots, suspensions, and James' famous Sefalaljia, to name but a few. Rope tricks are the ultimate form of "pack small, play big" magic. And many impromptu feats that can be worked at the drop of a hat - often with borrowed rope - are described in these pages. Mini-miracles for virtually every type of performer are illuminated in these pages. From kid-show worker to close-up magician and parlor prestidigitator, rope tricks to suit nearly every taste, theme, and interest (not to mention skill) level are included. Many of the greatest magical minds of the last 100 years contributed to the Encyclopedia of Rope Tricks, including Harlan Tarbell, David Devant, Jay Marshall, Martin Gardner, Eddie Joseph, Larry Becker, G.W. Hunter, Sid Lorraine, Bob Hummer, Jean Hugard, Winston Freer, Burling Hull, T. Page Wright, U.F. Grant, William Larsen, Sr., Dunninger, Percy Abbott, P.C. Sorcar, Tenkai Ishida, Will Brema, and many, many more.

The Encyclopedia of Rope Tricks

Stewart James (Compiler), Gabe Fajuri (Editor)

Dai Vernon: the last great undiscovered artist of the 20th century.His medium was magic and with it, Vernon turned the clandestine world of conjuring on its ear with virtuoso sleight-of-hand and a dogged pursuit for perfection.Born in 1894 in Ottawa, the son of a Canadian civil servant, Vernon moved to New York - Manhattan - in 1915, and never looked back. Miracles flowed from his fingertips - effortlessly. The source of his secrets? The underworld and the gamblers, husters and con-men that roamed back-room dens of iniquity, bunked in jail cells and walked the streets of America. Vernon sought them out, befriended them, and made their work, their covert methods, his. This book, the first in-depth examination of Vernon's life, traces the first half of his remarkable journey - through Ottawa, Coney Island, Chicago, Manhattan, Kansas City and Colorado Springs - and the celebrities - Houdini, Billy Rose, and Roosevelt, that Vernon encountered along the way. Dai Vernon: A Biography also details the evolution of magic in the 20th century. From the stages of London and Paris to the back rooms of magic emporiums where secrets were bought and sold, Vernon's life and work escort the reader through vaudeville, Broadway theaters, grand magic spectaculars, New York nightspots and the dawn of television. Here, cornerstones of the craft have finally been laid bare for all to see.

Dai Vernon: A Biography--Artist - Magician - Muse (Vol. 1: 1894-1941)

David, Ben

Show business junkies, magic fans and lovers of the variety arts, put your hands on your wallets and read on. Cutting Up Touches is the first book ever written on the history of exhibition pickpocketing. This specialty act features dynamic performers who deftly steal watches and wallets - even neckties and belts from unsuspecting volunteers. F.D.R., J. Edgar Hoover, Pierce Brosnan and Michael Douglas are some of the many celebrities and political figures who've found their pockets emptied by these light-fingered showmen. David Avadon, one of the smoothest pickpockets in the country, unveils the rich history of this fascinating entertainment from its music hall beginnings to the largest showrooms in the world. He explores the powerful subliminal emotions touched by each act of theatrical theivery. This street crime turned performance art is unique among all entertainments. It is the human-to-human activity which most closely resembles bull fighting. Avadon puts the reader wise to the wires, dips and cannons of the street corner variety then, in elegant prose, limns the masters of stealing on stage: Dr. Giovanni, Borra, Dominique and many, many more. Illustrated with photos, playbills and posters, many published here for the first time.

Cutting Up Touches: A Brief History of Pockets and the People Who Pick Them

David Avadon

History

Rameses, the "Egyptian Wonderworker" was an illusionist of the Edwardian era. Born Albert Marchinski in Poland in 1876, he grew up in London in a distinctly middle class home. But as Rameses, he achieved financial and artistic successes beyond the dreams of most entertainers. His fast-moving, exciting and colorful illusions took him to the stage of London s prestigious Palladium eight times. In addition, he played England's top theaters and made triumphant tours of America, South Africa, and Europe. The highlight of his career was perhaps an appearance on the very first Royal Variety Performance attended by The King & Queen of England. Despite his theatrical triumphs, it was the stage that proved Rameses undoing. Little has been written about Rameses life and magic even though his was a singular approach to illusions and he enjoyed a career most magicians would envy. Thanks to Christopher Woodward s diligent research, his story can now be told. Rameses the Fogotten Star tells a previously unknown rags to riches story that ends back in rags. Along the way, readers learn the secrets behind Rameses' illusions (including his spectacular levitation), thrill at his theatrical conquests, and see how quickly that success slipped away. A 132 page deluxe clothbound edition, illustrated with rare photographs and memorabilia, color plates, complemented by a satin bookmark ribbon.

Rameses the Forgotten Star

Christopher Woodward

Harry Blackstone presented a full-evening production called the Show of 1001 Wonders. It lived up to that billing, as a stage-filling spectacle combining spectacular illusions, magnificent costumes, gorgeous girls, a corps of assistants, humor, dancing, and intimate conjuring, into a magnificent stage production. Blackstone toured North America ceaselessly and by 1947, after over four decades entertaining the public, was unquestionably one of America s greatest and best-known magicians. It was in that year, at the age of 17, that Adele Friel was swept into Blackstone s world of magic. She joined the ranks of his show unexpectedly, making the transition from solo song-and-dance act to one of Mr. B s gorgeous girls in the blink of an eye. It was a decision that would change her life. For the next three seasons, she trouped with Blackstone, playing an integral role in his show, both onstage and backstage. Memoirs of an Elusive Moth gives readers a rare and intimate first-person account of one of America s greatest touring magic shows. Laid bare in its pages are many of the secrets behind Blackstone s magic, as well as details of life in the theater, behind the scenes, on the road, and more all told here for the first time. Hardbound with dust jacket, illustrated with photographs and memorabilia. With an introduction by Dick Cavett.

Memoirs of an Elusive Moth

Adele Friel Rhindress

Introduction by Dick Cavett

Bruce Bernstein has spent over three decades creating, refining and developing some of the most devious feats of mentalism known to man. He's become a trusted, go-to source for many of the greatest mind readers of the last twenty years. He's collected an enviable list of endorsements from nearly every great magician and thought reader of the last thirty years. And now he's gathered together years of thought-provoking, engaging writing into a comprehensive hardbound collection that showcases his work in the finest possible light. It's called Unreal. This new book contains Bernstein's most baffling, amazing brainchildren. From commercial predictions (Eat at Joe's), to mind-numbing card miracles (Psych-Out, a revelatory 10 Card Poker Deal), to must-learn techniques (Bernstein Center Tear), and beyond, Unreal covers territory essential to every wonder worker's repertoire. The book outlines mysteries with the most basic of objects: slips of paper, cards, and money, as well as inexplicable feats of thought reading: predictions, mind reading feats, psychometry, utility techniques for obtaining secret information, cold reading scripts and techniques, and more. Ten new essays compliment the tricks themselves, each written specifically for this book. All of the miracles described in these pages are within the skill set of the average mentalist. No complicated sleight-of-hand or digital dexterity is required. That said, a healthy dose of chutzpah may be necessary in several instances. It's all explained in a familiar, engaging style, expertly illustrated by Tony Dunn. Unreal may be the book's title, but performing the miracles it explains is most definitely within reach of everyone that reads it. All material newly edited and expanded and illustrated, with an introduction by Jon Stetson. Deluxe real linen hardcover binding.

Unreal

Bruce Bernstein

John Bannon's highly-engineered, yet easy-to-do brand of magic shines in this hardcover collection. Over forty complete routines are described in Bannon s easy-going readable style. Here are the tricks and the clever, innovative thinking behind them. Collected from Bannon's publications over the ten years since his internationally best-seller Dear Mister Fantasy, you'll find an impressive variety as well: · Sophisticated fractal packet tricks· Contemporary gambling demonstrations· Ultramodern Ace assemblies· Unorthodox garden path tricks· Unconventional transpositions· Refined mental mysteries High Caliber covers the magical waterfront with a fresh, original view.Yet, notwithstanding this extraordinary breadth, no gaffs are employed and no difficult moves are required. Virtually all of the routines use regular cards, most are impromptu, and quite a few are self-working. Typical of Bannon s work, each layered construction has been polished until the trick has a point, a purpose, and a place in the magical firmament.All in, High Caliber is a remarkable collection of card magic by a modern master. A deluxe cloth bound volume with color frontispiece and dust jacket; illustrated with over 250 photographs.

High Caliber

John Bannon

From the ridiculous to the sublime - and everything in between - this book showcases hundreds of historic, funny, fun, and fascinating appearances of the lowly playing card in a range of fascinating vintage and contemporary photographs. They appear in games worldwide, of course. But take a moment to minutely examine a subject, as author and collector Laurence Lubliner has in this book, and you'll uncover the most unusual things. In Playing Cards in Photographs, Lubliner visually chronicles the countless unusual situations and settings in which cards have appeared over the last 150 years. Here, we see them on troop transport ships, in museums and store windows, on the sides of airplanes, in the hands of magicians, in the form of gigantic yet fragile pasteboard structures, on costumes, passed under tables by gamblers, in store windows - and virtually everywhere else. The book is a visual feast for collectors, photographers, designers, card aficionados, magicians, history buffs, and lovers of the odd &amp; unusual. 96 pages in giant 11 x 11" hardcover, with over 100 vintage photographs, text printed in two colors.

Playing Cards in Photographs

Arts & Photography

Laurence H. Lubliner

Photography & Video

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