ERDNASE

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Richard Kaufman
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 18th, 2022, 2:49 pm

I don't believe that Professor Charlier was a fictional character.

And Erdnase referring to the Charlier pass as "Charlie's Pass" may be because he only heard the name spoken and never saw it written. It's easy to mis-hear "Charlier's Pass" as "Charlie's Pass."
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Dr. Solka » October 18th, 2022, 5:14 pm

In Sec1:130:2; Single Handed Shift; “Charlies Pass,” is a typo.
In Sec1:194:2; The Acrobatic Jacks; “Charlier Shift,” is Charlier correctly written.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Hatch » October 18th, 2022, 10:00 pm

Dr. Solka wrote:In Sec1:130:2; Single Handed Shift; “Charlies Pass,” is a typo.
In Sec1:194:2; The Acrobatic Jacks; “Charlier Shift,” is Charlier correctly written.


It certainly does appear to be a simple typo, since the author has the correct spelling in the second instance. But it seems curious that he renames it the "Charlier Shift" rather than using his name for it, "Single Handed Shift" or the conjurers' name for it "Charlier Pass". Is it referred to at the "Charlier Shift" in any of the earlier literature?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Marty Jacobs » October 19th, 2022, 4:49 am

It certainly does appear to be a simple typo, since the author has the correct spelling in the second instance. But it seems curious that he renames it the "Charlier Shift" rather than using his name for it, "Single Handed Shift" or the conjurers' name for it "Charlier Pass". Is it referred to at the "Charlier Shift" in any of the earlier literature?

Maybe that's why he put "Charlies Pass" in quotation marks. It is odd that he renames it "Single Handed Shift" in the Ledgermain section, but then calls it the "Charlier Shift" in the description for "The Acrobatic Jacks." He also refers to it as "One Hand Shift" there as well. Lots of inconsistencies.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Dr. Solka » October 19th, 2022, 8:03 am

Just compare Erdnase's "Expert; 1902" on Single Handed Shift (pp. 130-131) and Acrobatic Jacks (pp. 193-195) with Sachs's "Sleight of Hand; 1877" on single-handed passes (pp. 58-59) and The Congenial Aces (p. 62) and Hoffmann’s "More Magic; 1890" on single-handed passes (pp. 9-11). Do you see the similarities?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » October 19th, 2022, 4:10 pm

Richard Hatch wrote:It certainly does appear to be a simple typo, since the author has the correct spelling in the second instance. But it seems curious that he renames it the "Charlier Shift" rather than using his name for it, "Single Handed Shift" or the conjurers' name for it "Charlier Pass". Is it referred to at the "Charlier Shift" in any of the earlier literature?

That's an interesting question. It's called the Charlier Pass in New Era Card Tricks, Modern Magic, and Tricks with Cards. Neither Hoffmann nor Roterberg use the word 'shift' in either the title or in the explanatory text. I don't have a third edition of Sachs' Sleight of Hand, but the Fleming edition only uses the word 'pass' and no reference to 'shift'.

Professor Hoffmann's column 'Some Useful Card Sleights' in the Magic Wand (vol 1, no 1; Sept 1910) draws extensively on TEATCT. In his commentary on TEATCT he says "The American card expert, by the way, uses a terminology of his own. What we term the 'pass' is to him a 'shift'."

If most of the conjuring literature available to Erdnase was published in England using 'pass', where did he learn the word 'shift'? It's used in How Gamblers Win (1865) - anywhere else? A search on Ask Alexander doesn't give any results for 'one/single hand/ed shift' before 1940 whereas the same search for 'pass' instead of 'shift' stretches back to 1902 (C. Lang Neil's Modern Conjurer).

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Marty Jacobs » October 20th, 2022, 6:17 am

Erdnase clearly considered the two terms interchangeable, as demonstrated by the following excerpt:
We are aware that all conjurers advise the shift or pass, as the first accomplishment, and while we do not belittle the merits of the shift when perfectly performed, we insist that all or any of the various methods of executing it, are among the most difficult feats the student will be called upon to acquire, and imposing such a task at the outset has a most discouraging effect.

But he understands that the more common phrase used amongst magicians is "pass". This also seems to suggest that Erdnase considered himself a gambler rather than a magician:
The principal slights employed in card tricks, that are not touched upon in the first part of this book, are known as “forcing,” “changes,” “transformations,” and various methods of locating and producing selected cards. We shall also describe other methods of shifting and palming. We should mention that a shift is termed by the conjurer a “pass.”

I guess these inconsistencies might be insignificant. But it is strange that he didn't stick to his own preferred terminology.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » October 20th, 2022, 8:28 am

Marty Jacobs wrote:I guess these inconsistencies might be insignificant. But it is strange that he didn't stick to his own preferred terminology.

Marty


Perhaps it suggests he's picking up the terminology from books rather than from talking to people & therefore uncertain what the preferred term is among other magicians/gamblers?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » October 20th, 2022, 11:08 am

"Shift the cut" shows up in Hoffmann's translation of Robert-Houdin's Card-Sharping Exposed. R. F. Foster's 1897 Encyclopedia of Games contains the phrase (recall that Foster has been mentioned in the search for Erdnase, because of perceived similarities by Jerry Sadowitz in their writing). Quinn uses it in Fools of Fortune.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Brad Henderson » October 20th, 2022, 11:14 am

Having written a book, and stuck on finishing another, being consistent in one’s terms and style is hard. Especially when the book is written over a long period of time with status and stops. And it’s easy to miss inconsistencies even when one can use a find/replace function in a word processor. As an author editing one’s own work it’s too easy to glaze over and past typos and errors. We see on the page what we think is there. Not what is there. And an expert copy editor would be able to find grammar and spelling errors but wouldn’t know differences in passes and shifts.

And at some point - you just stop editing and go to press. And that’s when you find all the mistakes that you knew couldn’t be there.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Marty Jacobs » October 20th, 2022, 12:25 pm

Brad Henderson wrote:And at some point - you just stop editing and go to press. And that’s when you find all the mistakes that you knew couldn’t be there.

Yeah, I agree, especially if his financial situation demanded that he met a specific publication date. The mistakes might not tell us much, but they do tell us something about the writing process behind The Expert.

What I find odd is that, in general, the book is very carefully written. I would expect a writer who took this much care to be very particular, especially when selecting technical terms to use.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » October 20th, 2022, 3:15 pm

Marty Jacobs wrote:What I find odd is that, in general, the book is very carefully written. I would expect a writer who took this much care to be very particular, especially when selecting technical terms to use.
Marty


Yes, I agree Marty. There are several ways of interpreting & my personal opinion is that this is more likely to have happened if a skilled author had written it quickly (because he needed the money). We may never know!

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Sawyer » October 20th, 2022, 4:39 pm

Hi All,

Some very good points are made above regarding Erdnase’s use of “pass” and “shift” to refer to the pass.

And yeah, it may be a little strange that he says “Charlier shift,” and places it within quotation marks.

However, I think that is not an editing or proofreading problem.

As far as I can tell (using the ebook version of the 2011 edition edited by Marty Demarest, and using the Kindle search-function), Erdnase is one-hundred percent consistent in using the term “shift,” except in three instances, quoted below:

1. all conjurers advise the shift or pass

2. termed by the conjurer a “pass.”

3. known to conjurers as the “Charlies Pass,” and we

So, it’s as though “shift” is Erdnase’s preferred term, which I suppose he picked up from gambling books or via word of mouth, from gamblers—but he just decided to provide a few FYIs regarding the conjuring terminology.

Whether all of this suggests that Erdnase was not a conjurer, I don’t know, but as Marty Jacobs said, Erdnase may have "considered himself a gambler rather than a magician.”

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Dr. Solka » October 20th, 2022, 4:43 pm

The term SHIFT occurs in "Si Stebbins - Card Tricks and the way he performs them," 1898.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » October 20th, 2022, 5:32 pm

Dr. Solka wrote:The term SHIFT occurs in "Si Stebbins - Card Tricks and the way he performs them," 1898.

In this case it appears as a cut to preserve the order of the pack. Done behind the back as you turn around it's fine as written.

There are tradeoffs in using the secret sleight in these applications. On the positive side, a turnover pass permits you a glance at the face card.

See for yourselves :) https://archive.org/details/sistedbbins ... 4/mode/2up
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Dr. Solka » October 21st, 2022, 4:32 am

Maybe. I'm not a native speaker, and I don't know if Stebbins was able to do a pass or was meaning the term pass.

Si Stebbins wrote:

TRICK 9.
How in a game of Hearts to deal every Heart to yourself. After shuffling have parties playing cut the cards and either by their CUTTING OR A SHIFT get a Heart on the bottom and deal in regular way.

TRICK 10.
How to deal a pat flush of any suit called for to any person asking it, ‘This trick can only he done in a four-handed game. First ask person what suit and what hand they want; then get suit card BY CUT OR SHIFT in proper position at bottom and deal regular.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » October 21st, 2022, 10:59 am

It's okay, from Trick one, where he uses the term in context:
...you can separate the deck at that point bringing the two parts in front of you and placing the upper half underneath.
and
RULE 1'' Shuffling''
In shuffling never riff or mix the cards in. A person may take as many as they like from one side and place them on the other. As long as you do not take cards from the center of the pack, but keep shifting cards from one side to the other, it will not affect the system. This is what is called a false shuffle and with a very little practice a person is able to fool the best of them.
It seems a more open procedure than secretly swapping top and bottom packets (a pass).
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Sawyer » October 21st, 2022, 4:49 pm

Well, to start out with, that Si Stebbins booklet (the one Jon provided the link to) is not a masterpiece of clarity.

However, after looking at all uses of the term “shift” in that booklet, I’m pretty sure that Jon’s analysis of the term as used there is correct.

One other thing in connection with that booklet is that, from what I gather, there are multiple versions of it. Variations might be found in titles, dates of publication, and content. But I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the booklet. The one Jon showed is, I believe, the first one I've ever looked at.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Sawyer » October 21st, 2022, 11:01 pm

By the way, a lot of information on Charlier may be found in David Alexander’s “A Timeline of Magic and Magicians for the 19th and 20th Centuries.” David says: “For details I suggest you pick up any of the books listed in the bibliography which will give far more specificity than possible in a project like this.” Not sure what he is referring to there. I’m a little curious about his sources on certain things, but it looks like he was quite careful in construction of the document. There are twenty-nine or so references to Charlier.

Link: https://geniimagazine.com/timeline/timelineworking.htm

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » October 22nd, 2022, 12:33 am

Is there a bibliography in that file?
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Sawyer » October 22nd, 2022, 12:49 am

Jon, I saw no bibliography at all in the timeline piece.—Tom

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Kaufman » October 22nd, 2022, 11:40 am

I don't think David finished it.
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Sawyer » October 24th, 2022, 11:04 pm

Hi All,

I thought somebody else might bring this up here, but it’s been several days, so I guess I will!

Chris Wasshuber, in his newsletter #1053 (10/20/2022), includes some highly interesting information about the location of another Edward Gallaway bookplate. Chris states that a collector of magic bookplates in Germany has an Edward Gallaway bookplate, which has been removed from a book. At this point, the title of the book is unknown, but the bookplate collector stated to Chris that it was a gambling book. Chris states enough information to show that locating the book (around twenty years after the bookplate collector sold it to a book dealer in Duesseldorf) would probably be quite, quite difficult, but not outside the realm of possibility.

Chris's newsletter states many details regarding the foregoing.

If nothing else, this does tend to strengthen the idea that Gallaway was interested in gambling books. The Man Who Was Erdnase has support for that on pages 57 and 390, and Chris has further details on that topic in his book on his Erdnase hunt (which are not in The Man Who Was Erdnase).

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Roger M. » October 26th, 2022, 10:00 pm

There isn't much support here for Wasshuber's endless claims that Gallaway is Erdnase, although I too read his newsletter, primarily as a long time customer of Lybrary's other offerings.
Wasshuber has a personal research methodology that involves massive leaps of faith, and definitive claims lacking proof.

An anonymous book collector makes an undocumented (other Wasshuber "says so") claim about a bookplate bearing Gallaway's name, one removed from an unnamed book that is someplace on earth, unfortunately nobody knows where?

Anyway...
That Gallaway had a copy of EATCT is well known.
It's not particularly odd considering that he was part of the small team commissioned to print it.
As Whaley, Gardner, Busby note - it's very likely that McKinney printed many of the popular gambling books of the day, ones that were available in Chicago and elsewhere.
TMWWE authors do make a claim that's a bit of a stretch IMO, noting that Gallaway had a personal interest in gambling .. this statement based on Jay Marshall's recollection of an undefined "group" of "magic and gambling books" that contained Gallaway's bookplate, and were then passed along to Rufus Steele, upon whose death they went to an unnamed second hand book dealer.
The way it's documented in TMWWE doesn't note whether it was 15 magic books and 2 gambling books, or 30 magic books and 6 gambling books.
Either way, owning books when you work for a printing company doesn't guarantee to flag your personal reading interests ... and nowhere do we get a complete breakdown of the contents of Gallaway's library, which could have contained hundreds of books, with only a scant few on magic and/or gambling.

I have long felt that Whaley/Gardner/Busby jumped too quickly to a conclusion in stating (overstating?) Gallaway's personal interest in gambling, all based on a nebulous recollection by Jay Marshall.
I also feel that Wasshuber jumps very quickly to the same kind of conclusion regarding a bookplate from an unknown book, a book that is nowhere to be found.

I find it all to mean nothing of note that we didn't know long ago, in 1991, when TMWWE was published.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » October 27th, 2022, 2:30 pm

Roger M. wrote: ... and nowhere do we get a complete breakdown of the contents of Gallaway's library, which could have contained hundreds of books, with only a scant few on magic and/or gambling.


As a point of comparison, Thomas Jefferson's personal library was pretty well documented, and he also had magic (Pinetti) and gambling (Hoyle) books.

The known facts about Jefferson and Gallaway that directly connect them to magic are comparable -
They both owned gambling and magic books.
Jefferson's interest in magic is more strongly documented than that of Gallaway, in that Jefferson's accounting ledgers showed that he paid to see a legerdemain man in Williamsburg, while he was at college. (He also paid, as an octogenarian, for boys in his household to see a ventriloquist). He saw Philip Astley perform in London, and while he and John Quincy Adams were in France, Adams wrote about seeing Pinetti -- it's certainly possible that Jefferson also saw the show (I like to think that Jefferson got his copy of Pinetti's book directly from the author).

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Hatch » October 27th, 2022, 8:02 pm

Roger M. wrote:TMWWE authors do make a claim that's a bit of a stretch IMO, noting that Gallaway had a personal interest in gambling .. this statement based on Jay Marshall's recollection of an undefined "group" of "magic and gambling books" that contained Gallaway's bookplate, and were then passed along to Rufus Steele, upon whose death they went to an unnamed second hand book dealer.

I read the TMWWE reference (footnote 14 on page 390) a bit differently than stated above. Here's what it says, per a 1957 letter from Jay Marshall to Martin Gardner: "Local Chicago amateur magician William C. Griffiths bought a group of magic and gambling books that a second-hand book dealer had been holding for Rufus Steele, who had died in 1955. Several of the gambling books had the bookplate of Edward Gallaway. One was a first edition of The Expert that Griffiths gave to Jay Marshall." My interpretation is that the bookseller was holding the books to sell them to Rufus Steele, not that he was holding them to sell them for Rufus Steele. In my reading, when Griffiths informed the bookseller that Steele had died, the bookseller sold them to Griffiths. I could be wrong. As stated by Roger, it sounds like Steele might have had books from Gallaway's library, which is something I've never considered. As stated by TMWWE, it seems possible that only the gambling books (unstated in number, but including Erdnase) had Gallaway's bookplate. I assume the bookseller had a standing order from Steele for any magic and gambling books and set them aside for him. So the group of books might not all have come from Gallaway's library.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Dr. Solka » October 28th, 2022, 6:00 am

Gallaways Bookplate, see
James B. Alfredson % Bernhard Schmitz "Magic Bookplates;" 2022
https://www.facebook.com/groups/search/ ... %20schmitz

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Tom Sawyer » October 28th, 2022, 2:57 pm

Hi All,

Regarding Dr. Solka’s post immediately above, Bernhard Schmitz is the collector whom Chris Wasshuber mentioned in connection with the ownership of the Gallaway bookplate (the example I posted about several days ago).

I clicked on the link in Dr. Solka’s post. It didn’t bring me anywhere I expected it to. I tried it again after a little while, and I received a Facebook message that I was temporarily blocked. Just passing this information along, but I myself won’t be clicking on it again.

—Tom Sawyer

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Marco Pusterla » October 29th, 2022, 10:04 am

The magic bookplates book is available here: https://magicbookplates.wordpress.com/
Marco Pusterla - https://mpmagic.co.uk

Ye Olde Magic Mag: magazine on magic history and collecting.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » October 29th, 2022, 11:45 am

Over the years there have been several discussions here about the location of James McKinney’s print shop on Plymouth Place and previous research has been done by others including Bill Mullins, Tom Sawyer and Magnus. This adds some info to what is already known.

James McKinney & Co occupied a building at 73-75 Plymouth Place in the Printers Row district of Chicago; in a block that ran between Van Buren Street to the north and Harrison Street to the South.

Built in 1894, newspaper articles of the time describe the building as having a frontage of 50 feet facing onto Plymouth Place, extending backwards 100 feet to an alley at the rear; and being six storeys high, including a basement. The buildings on the east side of the street were more modest than those of the west side, many of which were among the first skyscrapers, and straddled the entire block between Plymouth Place and Dearborn Street

By 1906 the street had been renamed Plymouth Court and the Sanborn Map Company’s map of the area in that year shows the location of the building on the east side of the street, just north of a building housing the Chicago (Commonwealth) Edison Co. electricity substation at 77-79 Plymouth Court.

The streets around Printers Row were renumbered in 1911 and McKinney’s building became 511-515 Plymouth Court; while the Commonwealth Edison Co. substation next door became 521 Plymouth Court. This photograph of Plymouth Court taken in 1914 shows the view of the street from Van Buren Street looking to the south towards Harrison Street in the middle distance. The building occupied by James McKinney & Co. would have been somewhere mid-way down on the left side of the street, just beyond the tallest building.

The original building was destroyed by fire in 1920 and a new structure of the same height erected on the site. At the time of the fire, the building was occupied by Bentley Murray & Co. and the new building also became known as the Bentley Murray building. (As an aside, Bentley Murray & Co. were printers of ticket books, cards and handbooks relating to horse racing and had a dubious reputation as potentially being involved in syndicate gambling).

In 1949 a major reconstruction project in Chicago extended Congress Street from west to east, which involved the demolition of several buildings across the long blocks of Printers Row – effectively halving the length of the streets running between Van Buren and Harrison. Although many buildings were lost, the Bentley Murray building narrowly survived. A photograph, taken in the 1950s after the construction of the Congress Street extension, shows the Bentley Murray building (credit to Magnus for finding this image)– no longer mid-way down Plymouth Court but now at the south-eastern corner of Plymouth Court and the new Congress Street. The remnants of the building that lay to its immediate north can be seen scarring the side of the building. The tall building to the right of the Bentley Murray building is the Peterson Building (built in 1917).

In the intervening years, Congress Street has been renamed and is now called Ida B. Wells Drive. Compare the image of the Bentley Murray Building in the 1950s to a screen shot of the present-day view of the south east corner of Ida B. Wells Drive and South Plymouth Court: side-by-side you can see the Peterson Building still standing, with the different coloured stonework between floors. Some of the windows present in the 1950s have been bricked-in, but their outline still visible.

The nondescript low brick building next to the Peterson Building has no signage to identify it, but with Google Street View, we can visit the alley at the back of the building, where we find a small inconspicuous plate on the brickwork for the Commonwealth Edison Company and the address at 521 Plymouth Court. Which means that the precise site of McKinney’s print shop is now occupied by the ‘Park 1’ parking lot, the footprint of which measures 50 feet in width onto Plymouth Court and 100 feet in depth onto the alley – precisely the dimensions given for McKinney’s building in the Chicago Tribune in 1898.

Even though it’s no longer possible to visit the building where The Expert at the Card Table was printed, you can park your car on the exact spot.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » October 31st, 2022, 1:56 pm

Some new information about Marshall D. Smith:

Marshall Denison Smith married Alice Stager in Chicago in 1898. The 1900 Census shows Marshall and Alice living together at 5512-5525 Monroe Avenue. In the Census of 1910, Marshall D. Smith was staying with Alice’s brothers at their home on Indiana Avenue in Chicago, his marital status still showing him as married, although Alice was not at the same address. By 1920, Marshall D. Smith’ marital status was given as ‘Single’ and he was living alone at 3-5 Ontario Street. In the 1930 Census his marital status was again given as ‘Single’, living alone at 4 East Ohio Street and similarly 'Single' in the 1940 Census.

The records show the reason for Alice’s absence: shortly after their marriage she had developed significant mental illness. In 1910 she was a resident at Kankanee State Hospital for the Insane; sometime between 1920 and 1930 she was transferred to the Peoria State Hospital (also known as Bartonville State Hospital, or the Illinois Asylum for the Incurably Insane). The practice at the time was to transfer patients whose condition was deemed incurable to Peoria from other mental health institutions in the eastern part of Illinois. The decline in her mental health can be seen in the census entries: in 1920, the record showed that she could read and write; whereas the responses to the same questions in 1930 state her abilities to read and write as ‘unknown’. Alice remained in Peoria until her death at the age of 82 years on 13th November 1953, having spent over 40 years in mental health institutions.

M.D. Smith's death certificate shows his marital status as 'Widowed'.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » October 31st, 2022, 2:29 pm

And of particular interest in relation to the publication and illustration of TEATCT:

The Chicago Business Directory of 1901 shows that both the Jamieson-Higgins Co. and Marshall D. Smith both had offices in the Monon Building. The business addresses of each are given as:

    M.D. Smith (Artist) 1310, 324 Dearborn Street
    S.W. Jamieson (Jamieson-Higgins Co) 1090, 324 Dearborn Street

As far as I can tell searching the forum, although M.D. Smith’s work address has previously been mentioned, his presence in the same building as Jamieson-Higgins Co has not.

Do the numbers given at the front of the street address refer to the floor of the building, followed by the office number? The Monon Building had 13 floors and 125 offices. If so, Jamieson-Higgins Co. were on the 10th floor, while M.D Smith was three floors above on the 13th floor.

Does that make it more likely that it was Jamieson-Higgins Co who put Erdnase in contact with Smith as a potential illustrator?

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » November 2nd, 2022, 6:36 pm

Since I’ve mentioned Jamieson-Higgins Co., here’s some new information about the company and its Treasurer, Samuel White Jamieson.

Jamieson-Higgins Co. was not Samuel White Jamieson’s first experience of working in the publishing industry. He had previously been involved with another publishing company, Alexander Belford and Company, established in 1898. The incorporators were named as Alexander Belford, Samuel W. Jamieson and Myles J. O’Kelly, with their offices 277 Dearborn Street.

Belford had been a formidable force in the publishing industry. His success was founded on aggressive marketing strategies: introducing cut-price low-cost reprints, and pirating books on an industrial scale by exploiting the lack of any robust international copyright laws. He was sued twice by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) for pirating Clemens' books; Belford won on both occasions. Belford’s success prompted other publishers to follow suit and the chaos that followed eventually led to the US Government passing the International Copyright Act in July 1891.

By the time of his association with Samuel White Jamieson, Belford was well past his prime. Belford and Jamieson enjoyed some minor successes as Alexander Belford & Co., but published only a small number of books before collapsing after barely a year in business.

Why is this of relevance to the publication of TEATCT?

Firstly, regarding the triple copyright statement of the first edition. By 1902, Samuel White Jamieson would have gained significant experience in publishing. He would have been familiar with copyright applications and, if he’d learned anything at all from Belford, he would have known how to protect (or circumvent) copyright law. He would certainly have known the tripartite agreement between the US, Canada and England meant that securing copyright in one country conferred protection in all – and therefore the triple copyright statement was unnecessary. The inclusion of the triple copyright statement was probably at Erdnase’s specific request and might indicate some personal connection with those countries.

Secondly, several of the titles first printed by Alexander Belford & Co. were transferred & republished by Jamieson-Higgins Co. Among these was a book entitled The Amazons of South America: Thrilling Adventures of Reckless Buccaneers and Daring Freebooters, by C. Montgomery Stevens (1899). This was republished in an expanded form by Jamieson-Higgins Co. in 1902 under the title Pirates and Amazons of South America. The title page of the Jamieson-Higgins edition bears a striking similarity to that of TEATCT.

Image

Carlo Morpurgo
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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Carlo Morpurgo » November 3rd, 2022, 6:17 am

Richard Evans wrote:And of particular interest in relation to the publication and illustration of TEATCT:

The Chicago Business Directory of 1901 shows that both the Jamieson-Higgins Co. and Marshall D. Smith both had offices in the Monon Building. The business addresses of each are given as:

    M.D. Smith (Artist) 1310, 324 Dearborn Street
    S.W. Jamieson (Jamieson-Higgins Co) 1090, 324 Dearborn Street

As far as I can tell searching the forum, although M.D. Smith’s work address has previously been mentioned, his presence in the same building as Jamieson-Higgins Co has not.

Do the numbers given at the front of the street address refer to the floor of the building, followed by the office number? The Monon Building had 13 floors and 125 offices. If so, Jamieson-Higgins Co. were on the 10th floor, while M.D Smith was three floors above on the 13th floor.

Does that make it more likely that it was Jamieson-Higgins Co who put Erdnase in contact with Smith as a potential illustrator?


Wow interesting..(I think)
Could the illustrator of this book have been M.D. Smith?

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... 1up&seq=18

The book is "Fun with Magic", Jamieson-Higgins Co, 1901, but the title page does not say who the illustrator is.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Jonathan Townsend » November 3rd, 2022, 6:40 am

At first glance the artist signatures on those illustrations don’t look like ‘Smith’.

Also interesting mention of centigrade temperature in the vacuum experiment with water. The original text and art may have come from Europe.
Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Carlo Morpurgo » November 3rd, 2022, 7:00 am

Jonathan Townsend wrote:At first glance the artist signatures on those illustrations don’t look like ‘Smith’.

Also interesting mention of centigrade temperature in the vacuum experiment with water. The original text and art may have come from Europe.


Ah right I did not notice the signatures. However some illustrations do not have them, and there appear to be multiple signatures

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Bill Mullins » November 3rd, 2022, 12:57 pm

"Fun with Magic" has some drawings signed by D. Wirth, and others by L. (?) Axxxxxx (can't read the handwriting). None of illustrations look like any M. D. smith artwork I've ever seen.

It's a fun book, suitable for giving to children. P. 27: "SUFFOCATION IN A VACUUM. Imprison a mouse in a receiver and begin to make a vacuum and you will soon see the little animal showing all the signs of suffocation, a proof that animals and people cannot live without air."

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » November 3rd, 2022, 6:47 pm

Richard Evans wrote:Secondly, several of the titles first printed by Alexander Belford & Co. were transferred & republished by Jamieson-Higgins Co. Among these was a book entitled The Amazons of South America: Thrilling Adventures of Reckless Buccaneers and Daring Freebooters, by C. Montgomery Stevens (1899). This was republished in an expanded form by Jamieson-Higgins Co. in 1902 under the title Pirates and Amazons of South America. The title page of the Jamieson-Higgins edition bears a striking similarity to that of TEATCT.


I logged in via a different laptop and the image didn't load (might be a firewall). If you can't see the image attached to the original post here's the direct link to it.

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Yehuda » November 3rd, 2022, 9:06 pm

Richard Evans wrote: The title page of the Jamieson-Higgins edition bears a striking similarity to that of TEATCT.


My guess is that a major detail that has you saying the title page is strikingly similar to Erdnase, is the funneling style of the text. Forte I believe made the same observation when pointing out the couple of moves that Erdnase apparently stole from the early Wilson text (discovered by Tyler Wilson).

In my opinion, I haven't found this detail significant or compelling at all, because I have seen many other old magic books (that preceded Erdnase) with this style, as well as even non-magic books of other languages.

But perhaps you were referring to other details?

Yehuda

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Re: ERDNASE

Postby Richard Evans » November 4th, 2022, 2:37 pm

Yehuda wrote:My guess is that a major detail that has you saying the title page is strikingly similar to Erdnase, is the funneling style of the text. Forte I believe made the same observation when pointing out the couple of moves that Erdnase apparently stole from the early Wilson text (discovered by Tyler Wilson).

In my opinion, I haven't found this detail significant or compelling at all, because I have seen many other old magic books (that preceded Erdnase) with this style, as well as even non-magic books of other languages.

But perhaps you were referring to other details?

Yehuda


Thanks Yehuda

You're quite right - the tapered text on the title pages isn't unusual for the time and there are other examples. From the perspective of TEATCT it's interesting for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, there would have been choices for Erdnase to make about his book: font, format & style. He could have taken advice from the printers (likely choosing the lowest cost option), or he could have made those decisions himself based on examples of other books he had seen and liked the look of. Had he had a publisher, those choices and would likely have been made for him and it would have been lot easier - but we know he didn't have a publisher because the book states it was published by the author. Since we know that Samuel White Jamieson submitted the copyright application on Erdnase's behalf, it does raise the question whether Jamieson-Higgins had a greater involvement in the pre-production of TEATCT. So, seeing another book that was published by J-H with a similar style title page is interesting as it might suggest they had a greater involvement. You can't discount the possibility that McKinney & Co., who printed a number of J-H's books, could have advised Erdnase directly, but to my mind seems more likely that J-H would have done this. J-H definitely weren't the publishers of TEATCT, but they could have helped, e.g. by typing the manuscript and liaising with the printers for Erdnase.

Secondly, the title page of TEATCT has always held a fascination because of the possibility that it could contain another clue to the author's identity. The tapered text in has come in for particular attention, with speculation whether this is of significance - such as in the way the line breaks are configured. So, discovering a very similarly-formatted title page in a book published by J-H/printed by McKinney shows that this particular style of paragraph was one they used in other books, and diminishes the probability of the tapered text in TEATCT being of significance.


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