Reviews
The Illustrated History of Magic by Maurine Christopher, Milbourne Christopher, David Copperfield
jameseckman's review
3.0
Magic should be changed to Magicians in the title, it's all about the people. While it briefly covers a few other people, the coverage is concentrated on western-style stage acts. Firstly I'm impressed by how much these guys, and the very few woman, traveled world wide when that wasn't something simple. Second, easy come, easy go. Theater fires, shipwrecks, bad investments and changing tastes really hurt many of them. Third, there were some really absurd rivalries, almost like school kids, [b:The Prestige|239239|The Prestige|Christopher Priest|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1414195709s/239239.jpg|1688160](terrible book) wasn't far off on this. They also seemed to blend together after a while, lots of copy-cats out there.
Also stage magicians were some of the first techno-geeks, using the latest science to produce some truly advanced widgets. While mostly white there were some Chinese, Indian and others that toured successfully as well and many of the Anglos used Asian personas on stage and in a few cases off-stage as well. This book only lists a couple of women, Princess Tenko and Melinda Saxe that were not widows of magicians. I guess the 21st century hasn't impacted the world of magic yet.
Also stage magicians were some of the first techno-geeks, using the latest science to produce some truly advanced widgets. While mostly white there were some Chinese, Indian and others that toured successfully as well and many of the Anglos used Asian personas on stage and in a few cases off-stage as well. This book only lists a couple of women, Princess Tenko and Melinda Saxe that were not widows of magicians. I guess the 21st century hasn't impacted the world of magic yet.
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