Five-Foot Shelf

[Matthew Field]

I posted this article I wrote, which is in the current Magic Circular, on Facebook but I thought some of you might be interested.
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This article appeared in the July 2013 issue of The Magic Circular.

The Magic Circle Five-Foot Shelf of Magic
by Matthew Field MIMC

What magic books should the presumably superior Members of The Magic Circle have read? After all, the self-described “most exclusive magic club in the world” requires an audition (or proven reputation) as a precursor to membership, and the subscription (dues) costs are not inconsiderable. Should a member, or prospective member, ask for a recommended book list, what might the Circle provide?

This question was of some interest to me, a self-confessed magic bibliophile. I asked The Magic Circle’s erudite Executive Librarian, my friend Peter Lane, the question and he challenged me to make a list. My goal however, was not to compile my list, but a list representative of a more general group chosen from the membership of our Society.

Then I recalled another list.

In May 1935 Theodore Annemann published, in his magazine The Jinx, what he termed his Five-Foot Shelf of Magic, describing the 37 volumes listed as “a working library on the art of mystifying”. Annemann stated that his goal was to cover “every phase and known principal necessary to a modern performer. ... Bring me a person who has assimilated the knowledge contained within this list and I’ll back him academically against the world of magic to-day”.

Obviously, in the almost 85 intervening years the literature of magic has grown considerably. I know that Members who have a particular interest, such as cards or children’s magic, will have read books (or watched DVDs) relating to that specialised area, but what are the books that would give an overall grounding in magic as a whole?

In September 2012 I wrote to 23 Members of The Magic Circle, in the U.K. and abroad, and asked if they would participate in compiling such a list. I described the criteria as being magic books all members should have read in their lifetime ‒ not individuals’ Ten Favourite Magic Books. In my email, I whittled Annemann’s list of 37 down to 11 books and added eight others which had been published since 1935 as a suggested starting point, a total of 19. Eventually, 15 individuals responded with lists and comments and, with myself as compiler and unabashedly opinionated editor, a list of 28 titles comprising 36 volumes was assembled.

I would reiterate that this is not a complete library of everything there is to know about magic. Rather, it is shelf of magic which, having been read and absorbed, will give a magician a grounding in a broad range of various areas of magic ‒ including close up, platform, stage, illusions, mentalism, children’s magic, magic history, magic theory and, because this is meant for Members of The Magic Circle, The Magic Circle itself (including Maskelyne and Devant). I’m not sure the list meets Annemann’s goal of covering “every phase and known principal necessary to a modern performer”, but it does, I hope, provide a resource for learning the things every magician should know.

It is my hope that this list, idiosyncratic as it is, will stimulate discussion among our Membership and encourage people to delve into books they have never read or would like to read again. Then, I hope that the list will circulate to other magic organisations and encourage those groups to develop and share their own Five-Foot Shelves. We’ll see.

I extend my sincere thanks to those who joined me in giving their time and effort to this project: David Ben, Andi Gladwin, Jim Steinmeyer, Scott Penrose, Jonathan Allen, Jeff McBride, Graham Reed, Bob Loomis, Paul Daniels, Mike Caveney, Alexander Crawford, Peter Lane, Dr. Edwin Dawes, Noel Britten and Will Houstoun. The recommendations from the individuals were often extraordinary.

I hope you’ll look over the list, make your own assessments, check your shelves and, if you can get to The Magic Circle headquarters, descend the steps and check out my favourite room in the building: the Library.



The Magic Circle Five-Foot Shelf of Magic Books

April, 2013


Harlan Tarbell – The Tarbell Course in Magic (now 8 volumes)
Edwin Sachs – Sleight of Hand
Maskelyne and Devant – Our Magic
Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin – The Secrets of Conjuring and Magic
Eugene Burger – Mastering the Art of Magic
J.B. Bobo – The New Modern Coin Magic
Henry Hay – The Amateur Magician’s Handbook
Bruce Elliott – Magic Made Easy
Tony Corinda – 13 Steps to Mentalism
Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue – The Royal Road to Card Magic
John Northern Hilliard ‒ Greater Magic
Various ‒ Stars of Magic
Milburne Christopher ‒ The Illustrated History of Magic
Dr. Edwin A. Dawes ‒ The Great Illusionists
John Fisher ‒ Paul Daniels and the Story of Magic
Hyla Clark ‒ The World’s Greatest Magic
Paul Curry ‒ Magicians’ Magic
Mark Wilson ‒ The Mark Wilson Course in Magic
Lewis Ganson ‒ The Dai Vernon Book of Magic
Dr. Edwin A. Dawes and Michael Bailey ‒ Circle Without End
Martin Gardner ‒ Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic
Patrick Page ‒ The Big Book of Magic
Henning Nelms ‒ Magic and Showmanship
Jim Steinmeyer ‒ Hiding the Elephant
Ken Weber ‒ Maximum Entertainment
David Kaye ‒ Seriously Silly
Juan Tamariz ‒ The Five Points in Magic
Tommy Wonder and Stephen Minch ‒ The Books of Wonder Vols. 1 and 2

[erdnasephile]

Interesting article, Matt (as always!)

I think that for me, no shelf would be complete without Giobbi's Card College. (I'd trade out Royal Road for them to keep your stated balance, although there's a whole lot in the Card College that applies to most any type of magic.). Also, it seems criminal not to include Carney's Book of Secrets, which is a very well rounded book of close-up, platform, etc., and is extremely strong in magic theory. Finally, Caveny's Wonders should knock out a few of the weaker entries when it lands in August .

[Joe Pecore]

Great list!

I added it to the others at lists at http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Category:Classic_Books

[Gordon Meyer]

While I'm big on magic history, for magicians who aren't members of the Magic Circle, "Circle without End" could be replaced with Steinmeyer's Conjuring Anthology.

[Matthew Field]

A fine suggestion.

[Steve Mills]

Always and interesting discussion, although I always felt that virtually every five foot list has certain obligatory titles which are included for show rather than usable content - just my perspective.

I guess the next this is mandatory DVDs that would be included on a flash drive of a given size - could be interesting.

I have a personal affinity for magazine compilations and feel they are generally given the short shrift on the 5 foot shelf discussions I've seen. Personally there are several I could easily kick off and replace them with Epilogue, Richard's Almanac, etc.

[Matthew Field]

Don't forget, Steve, this is not a list of favorite books -- it's supposed to be a list of books well-read magicians (in this case, in a particular club) should consider as a basic grounding in magic overall. There are several books on the list that are not among my favorites, and plenty of omissions.

[Bill Duncan]

I'd replace Bobo's with COINMAGIC, Royal Road with Card College, and add Designing Miracles.

[J Bright]

Circle members may want to speed read Modern Magic. Any reason Hoffmann isn't on a list for Magic Circle members?

Jon

[Matthew Field]

First, allow me to reiterate this this is not "my" list -- it's a collective project.

That being said, "Coinmagic," a wonderful and essential book for anyone interested in magic with coins, is less essential if you do not perform coin magic. It also presupposes a knowledge of what's in Bobo, which I think is coin magic's basic text.

Almost all of my dear friend and teacher Richard Kaufman's books (excepting Knack Magic) are advanced texts presuming the basic knowledge this list is meant to provide.

Hoffmann is not on there because I think, unless you are interested in pursuing magic history, it is not essential for a basic understanding of how magic developed over the ages.

Not everyone who submitted lists for the project agreed -- especially Will Houstoun.

But this is not a list of the best books in magic. It is a basic list to make magicians better grounded in the many facets of our art. It is also meant to provoke discussions like this one, as well as recommendations from other magic societies for their members.

Matt Field

[J Bright]

I would include Modern Magic because it DOES show how magic developed over the ages.

Few magicians will perform "The Wizard's Omelet", but there is still relevant material (close up, stage, apparatus), not to mention name dropping of the prominent magicians of the era.

[Bill Mullins]

I've got most of these books, and am familiar with most of the rest. But I don't know anything about "Hyla Clark ‒ The World’s Greatest Magic".

From googling, it appears to be a general public survey of magic -- is that right? If so, why was it selected instead of (for example) David Price's book, or the companion book to the PBS "Art of Magic"?

I don't know what I'd drop to get it in, but my shelf would include Annemann's Practical Mental Effects. And Erdnase (but I'm going to cheat a little on it -- rather than the original text, I'll use the Annotated Erdnase by Ortiz, for context and history). And Silverman's Houdini biography -- he is so key to magic's history, and the relationship between magic and skepticism of spiritualism.

And I'd love to get the (big version) Taschen Magic 1400s - 1950s in there, but it would take up two of the five feet all by itself.

Good to see Will Houstoun sticking up for Angelo Lewis. Will, how's that dissertation going?

[Jon Racherbaumer]

Part of the criteria should be:

BOOKS ONE WILL LIKELY REREAD MANY TIMES...

...and upon each rereading, one discovers something new, novel, and stimulating.

[Steve Bryant]

The Hyla Clark book contains gorgeous full-page color photos of some of the best of 20th century magicians -- Slydini, Vernon, Goshman, Richard Ross, Marvyn Roy, Johnny Thompson, Norm Nielsen, Carl Ballantine, and many others. Most inspiring, one of my favorite books.

[erdnasephile]

The Hyla Clark book contains gorgeous full-page color photos of some of the best of 20th century magicians -- Slydini, Vernon, Goshman, Richard Ross, Marvyn Roy, Johnny Thompson, Norm Nielsen, Carl Ballantine, and many others. Most inspiring, one of my favorite books.

When I was a kid, I pretty much monopolized the copy of that book in our public library--I have always been fascinated by that picture of Jimmy Grippo splitting a coin. I finally got my own copy last year

[R.E.Byrnes]

Second the call above for "Book of Secrets." Also, a nascent classic: Helder Guimares' "Reflections." Each book connects the author's command over the most subtle details to performances that appear effortless and utterly natural.

Pre-Internet, The World's Greatest Magic was the dominant source for images of great performers. I recall saving a small photo of Doug Henning doing the Zig Zag with his distinctive, more representational painted image from Parade, the Sunday paper insert, because that and similar images were so scarce. (And I stared endlessly at the right-angle vertices of the middle box being impossibly separate from the rest, just two tangent touches. Even though the right hand often strained and reached a lot, the impossibility was mesmerizing.)

[Bill Mullins]

The original "Five Foot Shelf," the Harvard Classics, was 51 volumes.

I thnk that means we can add to Matthew's list, without dropping any of his selections.

[Joe Pecore]

Julie Eng sent me David Ben's five foot shelf to add to MagicPedia: http://www.geniimagazine.com/magicpedia ... f_Of_Magic

[Bill Duncan]

Matt, the problem with Bobo's is that there is a lot of bad coin magic in there. The basics are well covered in the other titles on the list.

[Matthew Field]

Bill -- I think you'll find that many magic books reference Bobo when they're explaining a coin effect. For that reason alone I think it's essential for the list.

Matt Field

[Jonathan Townsend]

Bobo's was a survey book of its time and perhaps not the best of sources for scholarly work. Perhaps an annotated and expanded version could be compiled one day.

[Bill Duncan]

Amen Jon.
The nonsense about the Tenkai Pinch for example.

[Smurf]

This is a great topic Matt.

Perhaps one of the large Stewart James compilations would be a nice selection as well.

[Matthew Field]

Smurf -- the Stewart James material is wonderful, but do I think all magicians should read it to be well-grounded in magic? Children's magicians? Coin magicians? You can guess the answer. The idea is to stimulate magicians in every specialty (and remember this was prepared for members of The Magic Circle to read) to look over and just maybe read something they might have missed that will make them better grounded in the gestalt of magic.

And I've sent the list to the editors of The Linking Ring and M-U-M, Sammy Smith and Mike Close, as well as Bill Goodwin at The Magic Castle Library to see if maybe their members might participate in preparing similar lists which could then be compared. And debated!

Matt Field

[Jonathan Townsend]

Anyone else putting Harbin's Magic or the Rezvani book or something about Ralph Adams on their shelves? I liked seeing the Cramer Germain book and The Stars of Magic the magipedia list (thanks David Ben), also a Ganson on Vernon item and at least one of the Hoffmann books. Any takers for the Mark Wilson course book? How about Galloway's first book on Ramsay's tricks and applied misdirection?

[Matthew Field]

All great books, Jon. But the Harbin book is so difficult to come by that I didn't think it fair to include it (even though it is in The Magic Circle's Library).

Matt Field

[erdnasephile]

I am fond of the Steve Draun quote: "Please do not misunderstand, I am not disparaging these old books, and many of the methods and effects are great and I have learned much from them, but we have not all been sitting on our hands for the last fifty or hundred years. The sleights have been improved. So if it's the best technology you're after, read the most advanced, modern literature."

Although that quote is generally applied to advanced books, I think the same could be said for basic, beginners' texts as well. If better, more clear (or correct) descriptions of sleight of hand fundamentals exist in modern texts, why not start with them? Why start with Royal Road when you can have Card College, or Bobo's when you could study David Roth's Expert Coin Magic...Made Easy (Gasp! Heresy! ) or even better, some future "Coin College". Might as well get off to a good start with the best information available to you at the time, regardless of the date of publication.

On another note, Harry Lorayne's "The Magic Book" gave many a strong grounding in magic fundamentals.

[Bill Mullins]

On further consideration, I'd add Paul Gertner's Forcing a Card in the Classical Manner. It's small, so I'd stick it inside of Greater Magic and hope no one noticed I slipped it in. And I'd think about dropping something (haven't decided which) to get Abbott's Rope Encyclopedia (the modern single-volume version) in, as well as Steinmeyer's Conjuring.

The area of magic that I probably know least about is stage illusions. Is there a general purpose illusion book? Is the topic covered adequately in Tarbell and the other books in Matt's list? (Is that why Harbin's book was suggested?)

I understand that the list in Matt's post is specifically for MC members. As a forum thread, though, I'd be interested in your answer to this dilemma:

You are going on a 5 year trip to a country that has no magic books available. Your luggage allowance has room for a stack of magic books, five feet high. What do you take with you? (and more importantly, why these?) You can put your list together from a couple of different perspectives.
- You want to teach the budding magicians of this country, and need a basic library (this is pretty close to Matt's premise, I think).
- Or for more selfish reasons, you want to have the books that you re-read again and again, or the ones that you enjoy reading for fun, or the ones that teach you something every time you open them, or the ones that cover material you don't know about, but want to learn.

Anyone else putting Harbin's Magic or the Rezvani book or something about Ralph Adams on their shelves? . . . Any takers for the Mark Wilson course book? How about Galloway's first book on Ramsay's tricks and applied misdirection?

What do the Rezvani and Mark Wilson books cover for the specified MC audience that isn't already covered in the rest of the list? I don't know Rezvani, and while Wilson's book is a great beginner text, if you've already got Tarbell and Greater Magic, I doubt you need Wilson.

Adams's book seems to be reasonably obscure (neither Magic nor Genii's obituary of Adams mentioned it) -- does it offer something unique?

[Bill Mullins]

David Acer put together a list for Genii in 2000. Most of his selections are in Matt's MC list. But conspicuously absent is Paul Harris's Art of Astonishment. When I got started in magic 15 or so years ago, AofA was the new big deal. Has the assessment of this book dropped in the last decade?

(Acer also included Fitkee's The Trick Brain and Lorayne's Close-Up Card Magic.)

Here is Annemann's original list.

And if the list is meant to take a randome member of the MC and make them a better, more well-rounded magician, then you could probably drop any book from it and replace it with Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

[erdnasephile]

With respect, I think "The Trick Brain" is overrated.

As far as the Harris books, I think that while there are certainly gems in the book, I think it is a poor text for gaining a basic grounding in magic. (For example, if you learned how to classic palm from Harris' instruction, you'd be a very big step behind).

Finally, there is an important topic that is not covered specifically in the list: how to study and practice. For that, I would nominate "Magic By Design" by John Carney, and "The Ostritch Factor: a practice guide for magicians" by Gerald Edmundson.

[Bob Coyne]

One relatively objective factor I think is very important is the number of "citations" to a given book. Aside from indicating that a book is a classic, it is useful to have a frequently cited book on your shelf, otherwise you often won't be able to make full sense out of the citation itself. Are there any statistics compiled on this? (Probably not).

[Joe Pecore]

One relatively objective factor I think is very important is the number of "citations" to a given book. Aside from indicating that a book is a classic, it is useful to have a frequently cited book on your shelf, otherwise you often won't be able to make full sense out of the citation itself. Are there any statistics compiled on this? (Probably not).

Not exactly what you asked for, but Ask Alexander might give a rough estimate. Examples:
1,864 references in 824 documents for "Tarbell Course in Magic "
991 references in 662 documents for Sachs and "Sleight of Hand"
826 references in 566 documents for Maskelyne and Devant and "Our Magic"

[Jonathan Townsend]

if folks were scholarly in general when writing that citation idea would be great.

I heard a notable coin guy was one of the ghost writers for the Wilson course.

I like that the Jinx list has a non-magic-trick-shop item ...

Ralph Adams and Robert Harbin were working pros for large club/stage magic - their perspective is significant IMHO.

I was using the primary source - what can't be found elsewhere that one needs to consider when performing magic criteria rather than "what an expert might want to have".