400 Tricks You Can Do by Howard Thurston 1940 Magic Tricks Free PDF book





Excerpt:In the compilation of this book, selection has been made from nearly two thousand available tricks in order to obtain the most workable and most up-to-date material. They are intended not only for the beginner in magic but also for the advanced amateur magician, who will find many new and interesting items in the following pages. In order that this compendium of magic may be used to best advantage, the contents have been divided into chapters, each section dealing with tricks with one particular type of article. As there are certain tricks which are difficult to classify, they have been placed in the chapters where they seem properly to belong; but if they hold any claims to belonging to another division of the book, they are mentioned and indexed under the other heading as well. The various chapters have been arranged in alphabetical order, according to their headings.Howard Thurston, the World’s Master Magician, was born in Columbus, Ohio, on July 20, 1869. When he was a small boy, Alexander Herr Mann, the great magician of that day, came to Thurston’s home city, and young Howard attended the performance. That experience awoke in him a love and enthusiasm for the art of magic that never left him. From that time on, his greatest ambition was to become a magician and to follow in the footsteps of the Great Herrmann.After a varied and adventurous boyhood, he decided to enter the ministry and to become a missionary. He had maintained his interest in magic, and had become an expert amateur conjurer, but had not decided to take up magic as his life work. He attended the Dwight L. Moody School at Mt. Hermon. He took the regular Bible course, applied himself to his studies and was greatly interested in athletics, setting the record at Mt Hermon for the hundred-yard dash.After graduation, he set out for Philadelphia, intending to enter the University of Pennsylvania, to study medicine, as he had decided to become a medical missionary. On the fifth of January, 1893, they found him in Albany, New York, waiting for a train to New York City. That day was to be the turning point in his career. Walking uptown, in Albany, Thurston discovered that Herrmann the Great was billed for a performance that evening. He decided to delay his journey, and once more witness the fantastic entertainment which had so greatly impressed him more than ten years before. He did so and found that the charm and mystery of magic intrigued him more than ever.