This Is Magic - Secrets of the Conjurer's Craft

Dexter, Will: This Is Magic
©1968 Bell Publications, USA
Hardcover, 204 pages

Comments: This good by by Will Dexter covers many of the classics of magic, including levitations, cups and balls, and Houdini. It is not a book of tricks, but a book about tricks. Some general revelation is provided, but it is certainly not an exposure book. Interesting reading!

Contents:

1 Chapter One - The Secret from the Tomb: Dedi, the Pharaoh's magician
5 Chapter Two - The Cups and Balls: history, a bit of how to, the 3 shell game, and other one in three mysteries
11 Chapter Three - Oracles and Robots: a look at "automation" illusions
33 Chapter Four - It's All Done With Mirrors: Pepper's Ghost and other stage illusions
53 Chapter Five - The Lady Vanishes: Stage vanishes
71 Chapter Six - The Trick That Never Was: On the Indian Rope Trick
89 Chapter Seven - Up in the Middle of the Air: Levitations
101 Chapter Eight - Sawing a Woman in Half
111 Chapter Nine - The Legend of Houdini
131 Chapter Ten - Marked Cards
142 Chapter Eleven - The Four Aces of Card Magic: Hofzinser, Charlier, Hull, and Hugard
161 Chapter Twelve - Think of a Number: Mathematical magic
176 Chapter Thirteen - The Sealed Mystery: mental prodigies who can calculate in their heads
187 Chapter Fourteen - Is It Second Sight?: On mentalism

Product Details
No. of Pages	204

Personal Details
Read It	No
Location	Magic Library (Home) Shelf F
Condition	Good
Owner	Bryan-Keith Taylor

Will Dexter
Born William Thomas Pritchard
September 13, 1906
St. Annes-on-Sea, England
Died November 05, 1985 (age 79)
St. Annes-on-Sea, England

Will Dexter (1906 - 1985) was a close-up worker, mentalist and writer.

Biography
Born William Thomas Pritchard in England, Dexter was a professional journalist who started in 1928. His duties were interrupted by World War II, in which he was later discharged as a Captain in 1945. He served as an editor for number of newspapers, and later as Editor and Publisher with Public Relations Industrial, London until his retirement in 1969.

In retirement, he became a Daily Telegraph crossword compiler.

He ghosted several books for Robert Harbin.

Dexter was a member of the Magic Circle, the British Ring, East Kent Magical Society, Nottingham Guild of Magicians and an Honorary Life Member of the Blackpool Magicians' Club.[1][2]

Books
Challenge Memory Test (1953)
Identity Parade (1954)
Famous Magic Secrets (1955)
The Riddle of Chung Ling Soo (1955)
101 Magic Secrets (1955)
Sealed Vision (1956)
This is Magic (1956)
Everybody's Book of Magic (1956)
Feature Magic for Mentalists (1975)
Original Routines for a Forcing Pad (1975)
A Little Magic Among Friends (1981)
The Uncanny Power (1981)
The Tarot Reader (1981)
The Astro Reader (1981)
How to be a Wizard (1957)

References
Genii Magazine, Vol. 49, N0. 7, January 1986, Will Dexter, by Eddie Dawes, page 471
Obit Magicol No. 78 (February 1986)
The Magic Circular, Vol. 79, No. 861, December 1985, WILL DEXTER, by Eddie Dawes, page 494
The Linking Ring, Vol. 66, No. 3, March 1986, Broken Wand, WILL DEXTER, page 111
The Magic Circular, Vol. 102, No. 1105, August 2008, A rich cabinet of magical curiosities, by Edwin A. Dawes - 358. Will Dexter: The Busy Nineteen-Fifties and Sixties, page 236
The Magic Circular, Vol. 102, No. 1106, September 2008, A rich cabinet of magical curiosities, by Edwin A. Dawes - 359. Will Dexter: The Final Years and Return to St Anne's, page 276