The Notebook - Will Houstoun

Subtitle: "A collection of over eighty conjuring tricks with cards including those performed by Astley, Boaz, Breslaw, Maxwell, Reay/Rea, Reews and Walton, written by an unknown author circa 1800"

Hidden in the depths of The Magic Circle, London was a long forgotten notebook, written around the second half of the eighteenth century by an unknown author. It's handwritten pages contained over 81 different tricks, sleights and subtleties with cards. What makes this book different to other known magic books from the time is that it's believed to be one of the first books on magic that was written with the intention that magicians would be able to study and learn from it. This means that a large number of the items it contains feel surprisingly modern. Many would fit perfectly alongside magic created in the twenty-first century, despite the fact they are over two hundred years old. Will even performs some of the effects in his show Dr Houstoun's Conjuring!

Will has painstakingly transcribed the original, hard to read handwriting and provides this alongside facsimile copies of the pages. Additional notes are also included that will aid in the understanding of the text as well as biographies of all the performers mentioned in the original text. A dating section explains the features of the text that allow the completion date of a two hundred year old, anonymously written, undated document to be estimated.

The Notebook is written and published by Will Houstoun as a high quality, 117 page hard bound book.

Hardcover w/dust jacket

USED, GREAT condition overall, 1st edition, c.2009

IMPORTANT NOTE: Former owner has pasted his nameplate, as well as small photos of the magicians that are mentioned throughout this book, on the inside front cover & onto facing page.  There may also be a colored dot on the spine, by which he indexed his collection, as well as underlining throughout.  THIS IS A USED BOOK, and the listed price reflects these possibilities.