The Stein and Day Handbook of Magic by Marvin Kaye

Details: The Complete Magician by Marvin Kaye (or the Stein & Day Handbook of Magic as it was known in the USA) is a wonderful book for the serious beginner who wants to perform magic as a hobby or as a professional.

What I liked most about this book when I first read it 27 years ago was that it didn’t just focus on tricks and sleights. It did provide some great routines in each of the main areas of magic, including a wonderful section on Children’s magic which I was performing most of at the time, but it also had chapters on patter, style, preparing for the big Stage show, routining and all the other things that make up a real performance. These other aspects of magic are often overlooked by the beginner.

The book also ends many chapters with a brief description of commercially available effects and gives sources of dealers and magical publications. As a budding young magician these of course inspired me to want to save up my paper round money to buy more magic!

I found this book a wonderful entry into performing magic for real audiences and for many many years used ideas and magic directly from it. Soon I will read it again and feel sure it will still provide me with some useful tips and ideas that I have forgotten.

(Notice: Although the printed word is basically the same in both versions of this book, the Complete Magician is a far superior quality book, with a bigger format, better quality paper and numerous black and white photographs. So if you can, get the Complete Magician instead of the Stein and Day Handbook of Magic.)

Contents:

11 Acknowledgments
15 Introduction

18 Chapter 1 Modern Magic — Its Rise and Fall

25 Chapter 2 Why Do People Like Magic?

31 Chapter 3 Fail-safe Magic
31 The Non-burning Handkerchief
33 Hidden Treasure
36 The Traveling Coin
40 The Penetrating Cup
41 Find the Ball
45 The Color-changing Pencil
48 The Floating Pencil
48 A Reliable Prediction
49 A Chronological Prediction
51 Invisible Flight
52 A Ring on a Rope
54 Two-tone Prediction
56 The Wise-Guy Turnover
58 Telepathic Tone
59 Olympian Vision
63 More Tricks

67 Chapter 4 What Do You Say and How Do You Say It?

78 Chapter 5 When Do You Move and Why Do You Do It?

88 Chapter 6 Essential Fingerwork
90 Card Spread
91 False Overhand
92 False Dovetail Shuffle
93 Three-pile False Cut
93 False Overhand Cut
95 The Palm
96 The Glide
97 Reverse Sliparound
98 False Card Count
99 Key Cards
99 The Thumb Pushback
101 Top Countoff
101 Cut Force
102 Behind-the-back Force
102 Deal-off Force
103 Basic Coin Palm
103 Thumb Palm
104 French Drop
106 Handkerchief Coin Vanish
108 False Coin Count
108 Billet Switch
110 False Knot

113 Chapter 7 Tricks with Sleights
113 Coin Flip
115 Serial-number Prediction
116 Center Tear
119 Kickaway Pip
120 Sucker Ace Change
122 Eliminating Cards
123 Two Reversed Cards
124 Stop Me Anytime
125 Card Pushup
125 Double-coincidence and Prediction Miracle
128 Impossible Location
130 Cut and Restored Ropes
138 More Tricks

140 Chapter 8 Stacking the Deck
141 Eight Kings
142 Si Stebbins
143 Two-card Divination
143 Basic Mnemonic Coding
147 Silent Card Coding
150 Paired-card Force Deck
151 Out of this Universe
152 Missing But in Good Company
155 More Tricks

157 Chapter 9 Controlling the Audience’s Attention

166 Chapter 10 In Search of Personal Style

170 Chapter 11 Putting Together an Act

179 Chapter 12 Magic of the Mind
182 ESP Card Location
183 Last-minute Message Reading
185 A Fast Prediction
186 One-ahead Message Reading
188 Indetectable-object Code
190 Code for Any Room
192 The Ultimate Premonition
194 Super Sucker Spirit Slates
196 The Free-choice Telephone Test
197 Ultra-mental Phone Code
198 Two-word Card Code
200 More Tricks

203 Chapter 13 Preparing for the Stage Show

215 Chapter 14 Assistants and Volunteers

222 Chapter 15 Tricks and Routines for Stage and Platform
223 The Drunken Magician
227 Election-day Blues
229 Impromptu Sawing a Woman in Half
231 Silk Escape
232 Underchair Escape
233 Comic Rope Tie
236 Knock-out Card Prediction
238 More Tricks

241 Chapter 16 Performing for Children

253 Chapter 17 Magic for Children’s Shows

287 Chapter 18 Other Special Audiences

296 Chapter 19 Do’s and Don’ts of Magical Entertainment

298 Appendix: Supply Sources of Magic Tricks and Literature
300 Glossary
308 Bibliography

• Publisher: Stein & Day Pub. Co., New York
• Pages: 310
• Location: New York, USA
• Date: 1973
• Binding: hardbound

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