Klingsor, Claude: The Big Book of Rising Cards
©2010 Claude Klingsor, Library,com
Hardcover, 211 pages

This is the most beautiful magic book ever published! I know, this is a pretty strong claim, but read on and judge for yourself.

"I've just had a chance to spend a couple of hours with this book. Wow, Chris. This is an amazing book. Not only does it look incredible, it is of immense historic value." - Ben Harris
"A terrific work, a must have for anybody who thinks of him- or herself as a magician." - Max M.

Before I tell you why I am convinced this is the most beautiful magic book ever published, allow me to give you a bit of history on how this book came to be.
In 1954 Claude Klingsor published an encyclopedia of rising card tricks in French under the title Les tours de cartes montantes. It was produced in a small print run, quickly sold out, and vanished into the private libraries of lucky magicians who picked up a copy. Even though it was the most comprehensive encyclopedia of the rising cards ever compiled it never was translated into English. It is quite fascinating how such a pearl of magic literature could practically vanish. However, if this would be all there is to it I would not have made the claim I made before. Fast forward a couple of decades...

Fabrice Delauré enters the stage. Fabrice, an innovative young creator and producer of magic, had one magic hero - you guessed correctly - Claude Klingsor. And one of his dreams was to update and upgrade Klingsor's encyclopedia of rising cards. Fabrice and Claude teamed up and updated and expanded on Claude's original work to create an even more complete and accurate encyclopedia. However, if this would be all there is to it I would not have made the claim I made at the top. It would be an authoritative encyclopedia of the rising cards, quite a unique book, but I could not claim it to be the MOST BEAUTIFUL MAGIC BOOK.

The defining difference of the new edition Fabrice published is that every gimmick, apparatus and equipment described in the book, and there are many, was first created in a 3D computer aided design (CAD) software - a solid modeling tool. And then from this digital 3-dimensional representation an illustration was created through rendering akin to the latest graphics effects in Hollywood blockbuster movies. This allowed for wonderful see-through and cross-cut illustrations unlike any you have seen in a magic book. The amount of work as you can imagine was staggering. Think about how long it takes to model even a simple box with a lid in a 3D CAD tool. Every piece has to be drawn and properly aligned to the other parts. Material properties have to be specified. And then to actually create an illustration camera and lights have to be positioned properly. And now do this literally dozens of times with objects consisting of many individual parts. It is at least an order of magnitude more time consuming to create a 3D object than to simply draw a 2D representation. It is almost the difference between actually building each piece rather than merely describing it.

When I first saw the book I could not believe my eyes. I have used 3D CAD software before and I immediately knew that only a perfectionist and crazy fanatic of magic would ever attempt to do anything like it. I think it is unlikely that anybody would try something similar. It is a labor of love. The only problem was that again this was only published in French. I knew that I had to bring this most beautiful magic book to a larger audience. I bought the English language rights, had it translated, and am now able to offer it to you.

It is a large format book with color cover and color chapter separators. It has a soft cover with a satin UV coating to assure longevity and reduce the visibility of finger prints. The inside is printed on heavy semi-gloss paper. It is hard to describe the beauty and the visual appeal when held open.

Now that you know about the one-of-a-kind production values of this incredible publication, let me tell you about the actual contents. Encyclopedic works are rare because it takes a lot of time to collect and document anything in an encyclopedic fashion. Nevertheless, it is quite amazing that nobody besides Klingsor in his French original has tackled the rising cards - probably the most memorable and strongest effect possible with cards. We have encyclopedias of rope tricks and cigarette effects, even tricks with eggs were described in an encyclopedic fashion. Why not rising cards? The most comprehensive collection to date besides this work can be found in Greater Magic, but it is by no means encyclopedic. And magic with the pasteboards is by far the most popular kind of magic performed and studied.

"The rising cards is one of my pet effects and I have studied it for many years both from a performance point of view as well as from a historical and method point of view. I opened this book with the attitude that I would probably already know pretty much everything described here. Oh boy was I wrong! For me personally this is not just the most beautiful book it is the most important magic book of recent history." - Peter Kent
"Probably the most complete collection of information about the Rising Cards and its variations. Definitely the most beautiful book. Thurston would have grabbed this in a minute, and mystified more than one Herrmann. I've spent hours with this book already, and look forward to spending hours more. With the knowledge from this book, you'll always be able to perform the Rising Card(s), no matter your venue, no matter your audience." - Chet Cox (Grandpa Chet)

You will learn methods based on sleight-of-hand, threads, clock mechanisms, rubber bands, springs, sand, gravity and many many more.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Little History
Chapter 2: The Rising Cards and the Audience
Chapter 3: Definition and Classification
Chapter 4: Regular Rising Card Tricks
Manual Tricks
Regular Cards
Prepared Cards
Non Automatic Processes
Thread system
Hair and wax ball system
The climbing cards
The flying cards
Processes requiring a riser
Processes requiring a magic wand
Processes requiring a cut out
Processes requiring a highly sharpened rod
Houlette using various processes
The rising cards box
Various processes used in rising card tricks
Automatic and Semi Automatic Processes
Release of a rubber band
Release of a spring
Gravity
Clock movement
Hydrostatic force
Swinging of a pendulum
Chapter 5: Universal and On-Demand Rising Card Tricks
Fake Universal Rising Cards
The Thurston process
The Ceillier process
The rising cards with a table mat (Dinsart)
The rising cards with a flat pipe
Universal Rising Cards Strictly Speaking
Barini's detective card
Guimard's cards on request
The Slygo houlette
The Neyhart houlette
The houlette with cut out cards
The Stull houlette
Dr. Hooker's houlette (for a comprehensive treatise see Samuel Cox Hooker and His Rising Cards)
Chapter 6: Fifty Years Later
Card Tricks with Apparatus: Non-Automatic Processes
Thread and hair system
Systems requiring a riser
Various systems
Automatic and Non-Automatic Processes
The Max Haug houlette
Richard Himber's solid gold gimmick
Devano deck improvements (AMY, Arne, etc.)
Klingsor's mechanical deck
Electronic rising card decks
Electronic rising card pack, bridge or poker size
The supreme houlette
Giant and mammoth rising card decks
Card throwers
The card fountain
The triple houlette (Klingsor)
About Dr. Hooker's houlette
Deck Switches
The swapping with a tray
The swapping with a box
Klingsor's swapping box
The triple houlette (Klingsor)
Chapter 7: Practical Advice
Conclusion
Index and Bibliography
French Books
English Books
German Books
Dutch Books
Italian Books
Index

1st edition 2010; 211 pages.

word count: 71236 which is equivalent to 284 standard pages of text