Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355760 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-09
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

About the Author
Jim Steinmeyer has invented many of the famous illusions used by leading magicians from Ricky Jay to Siegfried & Roy. He created David Copperfield’s vanish of the Statue of Liberty and has also designed magic for six Broadway shows and many other productions, including Mary Poppins, currently playing in London’s West End. He is the author of Hiding the Elephant, the Los Angeles Times bestseller, which Teller hailed as “a radiant celebration of the genius, glamour, and gargantuan egos of stage magic.”
Steinmeyer has researched and rediscovered many great illusions of the past and has written numerous technical books on magic history and the techniques of magic. He lectures on these subjects and is a contributing editor to Magic magazine, the leading independent magazine for magicians.
In addition, Steinmeyer has served as consultant and producer for magic television specials in the United States and Great Britain, and was a writer and producer for the A&E network’s four-hour history of the art, The Story of Magic. For several years, he served as a consultant and concept designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, developing theme park attractions for The Walt Disney Company.
Jim Steinmeyer lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Frankie Glass, an independent television producer.

Customer Reviews

solid contribution to history of magic
This is a reissue of a collection of five Steinmeyer essays about illusion originally published in 1998 which contains some overlap with his more recent books, Vanishing the Elephant and The Glorious Deception. This book is less polished and comprehensive, but is still quite interesting and well-documented, as those other two books are.

The first of the five essays discusses Steel MacKaye, John Nevil Maskelyne, and David Devant, the latter two of which are familiar to readers of Steinmeyer's other books. The essay is about the use of illusion in a grand scale on the theater stage, where MacKaye had some of the grandest ideas. The bulk of the essay is about MacKaye's desire to build "The Spectatorium," a special theater seating 12,000 that included a miniature ocean on which 3/4 scale ships could sail to show the story of Columbus' discovery of the New World. This was intended to be built for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, but it ran overbudget and behind schedule, and was never completed.

The second essay is about David Devant's "The Mascot Moth," and Steinmeyer's recreation of the illusion for Doug Henning's "Merlin" show--also familiar to those who have read Steinmeyer's other works.

The third essay is about the history and development of the "sawing a lady in half" illusion, and its relation to Grand Guignol. The fourth and fifth essays are about Steinmeyer's rediscovery and reproduction of Morritt's Disappearing Donkey illusion, a topic also familiar to readers of Vanishing an Elephant.

This isn't an essential purchase for those who have read Steinmeyer's other books--it's not as satisfying a work as the other two masterful books I've mentioned. It is, however, something that does stand on its own and is well worth reading for those interested in the history of magic.

Fascinating
I don't recall how I found out about Jim Steinmeyer -- it was an off-hand mention on the web somewhere crediting him with inventing David Copperfield's vanish of the Statue of Liberty. So I did a bit of reading on him, and picked up a few of his books. This was the first one I read of his.

There's 5 essays in the book. The first one was a little slow going, but I am happy I stuck with it because the last two essays are just great.

Steinmeyer has a keen interest in the history of magic. He illustrates magic's relation to theatre and how it was initially woven into theatrical tableaus. I'm in the midst of reading "Hiding the Elephant" so I'm not sure if it was in this book or that one where he quoted someone as "I am not so much a magician as I am an actor who is playing a magician." That's just great.

The last two essays concern Steinmeyer's quest to decipher the secret to a trick whose secret was never written down, and his attempt to recreate it. Really entertaining.

Don't read this just for the secrets
Jim Steinmeyer is one of the best and most lucid of writers on conjuring and magic. This book of essays takes you backstage to learn what goes on in the minds of those who conceive and execute the unexplainable that is seen on stage. It's not so important for the secrets it reveals as it is in going one step further to show how the secrets are invented. It's like taking a walk backstage at a magic show with an incredibly well informed tour guide.