Erdnase Hoffmann connection

[Torkova]

I came across a curious historical tidbit related to Erdnase. It might be well known to Erdnase-o-philes, but is new to me and thought I'd pass it on. I am aware of some theories that Erdnase might have read Robert-Houdin and/or Hoffmann. But here seems to be a strong indicator that he at least read More Magic (1890).

It relates to the The Traveling Cards or The Cards up the Sleeve (page 188 of the pocket edition of Erdnase). I always remembered Vernon saying how as a kid he knew he could master the palming but wasn't sure he could manage the "unflinching audacity" Erdnase advised.

Well, this past summer I've been reading the Hoffmann books cover to cover. I've finished Modern Magic and am now into More Magic. On page 60 of my McKay edition of More Magic, Hoffmann is describing, The Cards Passing Up The Sleeve. Hoffmann writes that for this the student requires "unflinching audacity" - the same phrase, for the same routine, as in Expert at the Card Table.

The uniqueness of this phrase would seem to indicate that Erdnase read this in More Magic and included his version of it in Expert written 12 years later, in 1902.

(I also checked the same routine in Robert-Houdin's book, The Secrets of Conjuring and Magic, that Hoffmann had translated. I found no similar phrase by Houdin and so likely it was Hoffmann's wording.)

Was just curious if this had been noticed before.

[Leonard Hevia]

A nice find. It highlights what the late Tony Giorgio and other Erdnase scholars have suggested, that he was a magician with an interest in card cheating.

[Jonathan Townsend]

a more general search on the phrase might amuse. The magic shop as library (see Borges or Eco) is something new.

[Bill Mullins]

Hoffmann's prior use of the phrase was noted by Will Houstoun in his 2010 book Hellis in Wonderland.

The Annotated Erdnase notes that much of what Erdnase copied from Hoffmann can be found in Hoffmann's Tricks With Cards. It might be worth searching that volume for "unflinching audacity".

[Torkova]

Thanks Bill, I was sure I couldn't have been the first to notice this!

[lybrary]

Searching the Magic Knowledge Base I did not find the phrase in "Tricks with cards" (can be found here http://www.lybrary.com/herrmans-tricks- ... p-126.html ) But since this book is a part from "Modern Magic" and not "More Magic", where the phrase at question is found, we would expect that to be the case.

I found a very similar phrase 'unflinching nerve and audacity' in "The Art of Magic", but its first edition was published in 1906, after Erdnase.

[Philippe Billot]

Tricks with Cards by Professor Hoffmann is THIS book :

http://archive.denisbehr.de/show.php?book=451

[Jonathan Townsend]

http://books.google.com/books?id=qSYwAQ ... in&f=false

the phrase was in print around 1875 and made it into local publication in Chicago in time for 1901 - see above.