Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

by Steinmeyer, Jim
ISBN: 9780786714018
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9780786714018

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Overview

Now in paperback comes Jim Steinmeyer's astonishing chronicle of half a century of illusionary innovation, backstage chicanery, and keen competition within the world of magicians. Lauded by today's finest magicians and critics, Hiding the Elephant is a cultural history of the efforts among legendary conjurers to make things materialize, levitate, and disappear. Steinmeyer unveils the secrets and life stories of the fascinating personalities behind optical marvels such as floating ghosts interacting with live actors, disembodied heads, and vanishing ladies. He demystifies Pepper's Ghost, Harry Kellar's Levitation of Princess Karnak, Charles Morritt's Disappearing Donkey, and Houdini's landmark vanishing of Jennie the elephant in 1918. The dramatic mix of science and history, with revealing diagrams, photographs and magicians' portraits by William Stout, provides a glimpse behind the curtain at the backstage story of magic.
  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Steinmeyer, Jim
  • ISBN: 9780786714018
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.30 x 1.08
  • Number Of Pages: 362
  • Publication Year: 2004

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  • A lot of hard work

    Benjamin H. - 5 years 9 months ago

    This book is fun. 400 pages of the history of stage illusions, built inside the tale of how Houdini vanished an elephant at the Hippodrome. The knowledge needed to tell this story so cleanly and simply, I read this book all at one go, is encyclopedic. Slowing down the history of optical stage illusions, and showing how individuals advanced it step by long-thought-out step, Steinmeyer really impresses with the amount of sheer work it takes to bring off an illusion.

    HPB Staff Review