The Genii Forum

In the article on the LA Conference on Magic History, it states: "... his attempt to research the author of an article on conjurers on which every other author, since 1909, has relied."

What article is this? Where can I learn more about the article? Can I read the article somewhere? Everyone in the audience was apparently interested in who the author was, but I'm clueless enough that I don't know anything about the article. How can I become educated on this topic?

Thanks,
-alain

Bob Read's wonderful piece on Arthur Watson has not been published.

Alas, I was not able to attend Bob's lecture, so can't comment on how much new information he provided. But if you have the Miracle Factory edition of Clarke's THE ANNALS OF CONJURING, in one of the appendices you will probably find much of the background information you are looking for.

Clay

I should clarify--as much as I am interested in reading Bob Read's work, I'm curious about the original 1909 article that spawned so much research.

-alain

The 1909 article is in a magazine called The Reliquary. I saw it on Bob's desk not too long ago (he did give the source in his talk).

In his essay "The Mysterious Arthur Watson" in our 2001 edition of The Annals of Conjuring, Bob gave the whole story.

In 1999, Gordon Bruce called Bob's attention to two 1909 articles on early magic history by one Arthur Watson in The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist.

Bob and Edwin Dawes quickly realized that two important conjuring historians (Sidney Clarke and Kurt Volkmann) had used Watson as a source, but no one had any idea who Arthur Watson was.

Thus began Bob's (as usual, somewhat tongue-in-cheek) quest to find out more about this mysterious author who had never received credit for uncovering some of the major keystones of early magic history.

At this year's LA Conference on Magic History, Bob told me how pleased he was to give his lecture and finally get Arthur Watson out of his system.

Thanks, I appreciate the background information!

-alain

Those interested in the story of Arthur Watson may enjoy these two articles:

http://textualities.net/gordon-bruce/watson-sherlocked/

http://textualities.net/richard-h-evans ... iscovered/

Richard...many thanks for the links. Wonderful stuff...