These 40 or so blocks look brand new and it is clear they have not been used to print anything. It seems they must be spare blocks, in case they were needed during the print-run of the book. The images shown here include the halftone blocks for Robert Harbin and Charles Bertram. There is also a PDF which lists all of the magicians included on these blocks and explains how the pages of illustrations were printed.
Copyright 1995 by Redstone Press, London. The description on the back of the box reads: ‘Here is an enchanting box of surprises, drawn from the fascinating and hyperbolical history of magic and conjuring. Open the box to discover an astounding compendium of rare graphics and picture cards, amazing tricks and illusions, jugglings and jokes.’ That description is about right. Compiled by Daniel Stashower.
Many of the Maskelyne items in the Davenport Collection were made for public consumption: programmes, publicity material, printed books, and so on. One of our shelves is occupied by books which were always intended to be private. They are the surviving business records of the Maskelynes at St George’s Hall.
The purpose of this article is to record the scope of these business records and provide examples of their content.
The book has an optically intriguing cover which produces multiple 3D images of the person looking at it, one image in each of the circular shapes on the cover. The book is full of well presented items, including a pop-up page to illustrate a particular type of optical illusion. Published by Dorling Kindersley, London in 2013.
First published in Great Britain in 1998 by Orchard Books, London. Illustrations copyright Nick Sharratt 1998.
Various types of list are included: membership lists for The Magic Circle, The British Ring No. 25 of the I.B.M. for the years 1984, 1987, 1996, 2001, 2005; Magic Collectors’ Association membership lists for 1984, 1989, 1993, 1994, 2002; Wittus Witt’s ‘International Magic Yellow Pages’ for 1990 and 1999; The W-I-S-E [Wales – Ireland – Scotland – England] section of ‘Magicians of the World’ compiled by Len Vintus in 1978.
This is used for a word prediction making use of a pack of cards. The instructions are stamped by the supplier: Charles C Eastman, PO Box 245, Haverhill, Mass., USA. The book includes the words Copyrighted 1935 by Chas. C. Eastman.
The book was presented with ‘The Wizard’ comic and has all the cards in it. The cards describe catches, tricks, optical illusions etc. Illustrated are two of the pages and the cover of the book.
With this book and a pack of cards the magician can make amazing predictions of what audience members have selected. Complete with instructions from The Magic Wand Publishing Co.
The first edition of this book was originally created and sold by Stanley Collins. It enables the magician to predict a word that is chosen at random. Davenports purchased the rights in 1942 and sold copies like this one that had been printed by Archie Byford. Included are L Davenport instructions. For further details on this edition of the book see Chapter 26 of the Edwin A Dawes book ‘Stanley Collins: Conjurer, Collector, and Iconoclast’, published by Kaufman and Company in 2002. See also Ref. no. N1337.
