Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

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Gary
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Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby Gary » October 24th, 2001, 4:23 pm

Richard,

Many years ago, I'm guessing 8-10 years, Richard Hatch translated the Hofzinser card book for you. Do you ever have plans to publish it? Also, isn't there some law that if a book translation is NOT published after a certain length of time that the copywrite returns to the translator.

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Re: Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 24th, 2001, 6:23 pm

The problem is not with Richard's translation, but with Fischer's original book. While there are manuscripts in Hofzinser's handwriting explaining most of the routines in the book, Fischer appears to have made stuff up, or used wrong information. Why, we don't know. However, the result of this is that a lot of the handlings in the book do NOT reflect what Hofzinser did.
Magic Christian is in the process of doing a large book in German on Hofzinser's cardmagic, that will present the TRUE handlings of these routines. Faced with that knowledge, I chose not to proceed with publishing Hatch's translation until AFTER the Magic Christian book comes out and I can see what's really going on.
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CHRIS
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Re: Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby CHRIS » October 24th, 2001, 6:49 pm

Gary,

as far as I know the book "Kartenkuenste" (1910) by Ottokar Fischer was translated 1931 by S.H. Sharpe and is today available as paperback from Dover and as ebook from myself (Lybrary.com). The title is "Hofzinser's Card Conjuring".

Richard Hatch translated the second book by Ottokar Fischer called "Zauberkuenste". This book does not focus on cards but on his other tricks.

There is a large misconception about the rumor that Hofzinser ordered all his tricks and recordings being destroyed after his death. Also we can only speculate about the accuracy about Ottokar Fischer's descriptions. They might be right or wrong, nobody knows. But what is far more important than his handling is his thinking and his advancement of close-up magic in general.

Hope this helps.

Chris.... Lybrary.com preserving magic one book at a time.

Gary
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Re: Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby Gary » October 24th, 2001, 8:00 pm

Chris,

Richard Hatch also translated "Hofzinsers Card Conjuring" for Richard Kaufman. It has just never been published. See Richards commments on why this is the case.

Richard...thanks for the info. I am looking forward to the book whenever you decide to put it out.

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Re: Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 24th, 2001, 8:23 pm

Chris,
You are quite wrong about whether or not we know whether Ottokar Fischer's book Kartenkunste contains proper descriptions or not--we KNOW they are incorrect. When Magic Christian's book is published, things will be much clearer.
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CHRIS
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Re: Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby CHRIS » October 25th, 2001, 7:42 am

Richard,

I wouldn't make such a sweeping statement. Not all of Fischer's descriptions appear to be wrong.

And just look at the source material Magic Christian uses. One could dispute the accuracy of this just as much as Fischer's own writings. I agree that some of Fischer's explanations appear a little strange or unusual. But I guess nobody of us saw or spoke with Hofzinser to make a final claim about the accuracy of these matters.

And then there is always the chance that a translation introduces errors. Did you read the Fischer original "Kartenkuenste"?

Chris.... Lybrary.com preserving magic one book at a time.

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Re: Hofzinser Card Book Translation by Richard Hatch

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 25th, 2001, 2:17 pm

I find no reason not to believe Magic Christian when he says that the manuscripts in Hofzinser's hand vary quite a lot from Fischer's descriptions. As a cardman, you can tell that there are a lot of things that don't seem to make sense in Kartenkunste.
As to your question about whether I've read Fisher's orignal Kartenkunste--if you mean in German, of course not. If you mean in English, yes, more times than you can imagine. At first I thought it was Sharpe's crappy translation into English that was the source of so many problems, however after having Richard Hatch do a new translation, and a better one, the many problems still exist--they are in the original text.
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