Hugard’s Annual of Magic 1937/1938/1939 (book)

Jean Hugard (1871-1959) was one of magic’s most gifted and prolific writers, as well as a successful performer of wide experience. For Max Holden he wrote two “Annuals”, covering the years 1937-1939. Both books have become hard to find and are conveniently reprinted under one cover here. Review from the Fleming book of reviews: When an author has written as many books as Jean Hugard, it is inevitable that some should receive smaller recognition than they deserve. This, we suggest, has been the fate of Hugard’s Annual of Magic for 1937 and Hugard’s Annual of Magic for 1938-1939. The 1937 Annual consists of 65 items, which carry the reader into many fields of magic. Sleights and tricks with cigars, cigarettes, coins, cards, silk handkerchiefs, billiard balls, and numerous other articles are presented clearly and interestingly, with the aid of many helpful drawings by Nelson Hahne -an artist who also contributes to this volume a half-dozen “comic strips” that amusingly portray the trials and tribulations of a magician! The specific tricks in this Annual include pouring cigar smoke from glass to glass (which we have seen presented with weird effect by William Frazee); the manipulation and multiplication of cigarettes; the familiar Multiplication of Money, but performed this time without a mechanical tray; a coin trick by Jess Kelly and L. L. Ireland, in which a borrowed half dollar is apparently converted into a nickel, after which the performer mysteriously produces the missing “change” in the form of a stream of forty-five pennies; Touch, a card prediction by Paul Curry (of Out of This World fame), which Mr. Hugard says “is undoubtedly the best trick introduced in many moons” -and we are inclined to agree; G. W. Hunter’s Twelve Card Transposition; The Knock-Out Card Trick, by Sam Horowitz; a very ingenious card “force” by Leon Maguire; G. W. Hunter’s very smooth Silk Routine; sleights and three complete “routines” with billiard balls; and a host of lesser items which include a half-dozen “useful gimmicks” and twice that number of impromptu tricks. Among the more important feats here explained are Mr. Hugard’s own presentation of the beautiful Floating Ball, described in seven pages of text with explanatory diagrams; Fire Eating, again Hugard’s own tried-and-true method, and again accorded seven pages of explanation; Max Holden’s detailed description (six pages) of his well-known Smoke Pictures; The Ropes, Fan, and Silks, which was presented on the stage with great effect by Dante; The Twentieth Century Spirit Séance, which employs the principle used in the Walking Away From His Shadow illusion; The Production of Real Cannon-Balls (not very clearly explained) of the late Owen Clark; Walking Through a String of Beads; and Mr. Hugard’s version of the Bullet-Catching Trick, to which are given seven pages of print and illustrations. Hugard’s Annual of Magic for 1938-1939 … deals with sleights and tricks in several branches of conjuring. Mr. Hugard begins this book auspiciously with an eight-page essay on extempore magic, which emphasizes the desirability of putting into a program occasional feats which, though actually planned with great care, give the impression of being impromptu. He then turns to the explanation of specific effects, among which card tricks play an important part, taking up about a quarter of the book. Prominent among these feats are his own Rising Cards inside a glass bottle} a novel and striking form of this favorite card trick; b. W. Meyer’s Finding the Pairs, a pleasing variation on the old Mutus Nomen Dedit Cocis theme; The Harmony of Numbers, a good feat in “coincidence,” with patter, by Dr. H. Walter Grote; Double Prediction, by Prof. Miller, an amazing mental demonstration that requires no digital dexterity but employs two special packs of cards; The Story of One-Card Pete, by Elmer Applegit, which turns out to be an adaptation of Tommy Tucker’s Six Card Repeat Trick, with amusing patter in rhyme; a first-class Card-Stabbing Trick, by Fred Braue; a Four-Ace Trick with giant cards (and therefore suitable for stage performance) by Fred N. Rothenberg; and a number of flourishes with cards. Other branches of magic are represented by A New Coin Production, to be used either in The Miser’s Dream or independently; a “coin penetration” by Tom Osborne; Louis Tannen’s Coins from Hand to Hand; a handkerchief production_ from candle; the familiar Handkerchief, Candle, and Tube, but performed without the usual faked metal “candle”; several billiard ball sleights; fifteen “useful gimmicks”; The Chinese Rings (8 pages), including three “moves” by Cardini; a farcical episode by Audley Walsh, making use of a dove pan and the help of two boys from the audience; sleights with thimbles; and a simple but effective feat in “telepathy” by Frank Kelly. In the section entitled Stage Tricks and Illusions are found a magical sketch called Professor Woofledust and the Neophyte, which strikes us as being neither humorous nor in good taste; an impromptu Cutting a Woman in Two, which bears no resemblance to either the Goldin or Selbit illusions that this title brings to mind; and The Fairy Fountains of Ten Ichi, which is well explained in eight pages of text with ten cuts. Approx. 5.75×7.75″ The book is a red hardback with gilt titles on the spine.