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The Notebook, or A collection of over
eighty conjuring tricks with cards including those performed by Astley, Boaz,
Breslaw, Maxwell, Reay/Rea, Rees and Walton written by an unknown author circa
1800
Published by Will Houstoun
128 pages, hardbound
Reviewed
by Rob James
Will Houstoun has painstakingly transcribed, researched and annotated the
text of a one of a kind magic book from the 18th century. The original belongs
to The Magic Circle Library which is where Will discovered it. The text came
handwritten without details of its author or date of publication. There are 81
different card tricks contained over 128 hardbound pages.
As an historical record, The Notebook is very interesting because, as Will
points out, this is one of the very first books of card magic that was written
with the intention that magicians would be able to study and learn from it. At
the time, any book on magic was usually sold in the form of an exposé, with very
brief explanations of the secrets rather than the detailed instructional texts
that we are now accustomed to. Will has included a full facsimile of the
original handwritten text but fortunately (as it can be a little hard to read at
times) alongside each of those original pages he has also transcribed the text,
complete with annotations in the form of footnotes and some new illustrations.
The text contains basic card techniques and tricks that have stood the test of
time such ribbon spreads, card transpositions and the favourite performance
piece of most non-magicians "the four burglars". Also included are some more
technical items such as a detailed description of a four card switch from the
palm. There are also a fair number of esoteric ideas that haven't endured the
distance such as "A Card thought on, shot through with a Pistol Bullet" and "A
Card conveyed into an Egg". I have a hunch that these will not make there way
into peoples' current performances but it's still fun to read the descriptions.
As well as the full text of the original book, Will provides his own variations
of some of the material. He takes time to explain how he dated the text and has
also researched the performers named in The Notebook, providing us with a
biography of each one. These make very interesting reading! He also provides
extensive notes of further references for anyone interested in additional
research into any of the material. In short, Will has done his homework and with
The Notebook has made all of his hard work freely available to the magic
community for the first time in about 200 years as a great-looking hardbound
book. For this he is to be commended. This book is recommended for all magic
scholars and card technicians!
Available from the author:
www.willhoustoun.co.uk/notebookbuy.html
© Rob James, March 2009