Cervon, Bruce & Keith Burns: He Fooled Houdini Dai Vernon a Magical Life ©1992 Bruce Cervon; L&L Publishing, CA Hardcover, 307 pages

Image courtesy e-Bay seller Sorcar-TWGM

Comments: Associate Editors Linda Cervon and Paul Hunt. Volume Four of The Vernon Chronicles. An autobiography of the life of Dai Vernon.

Contents:

xi Foreword by Richard Buffum
xiv Introduction
3 Magic's Past and Future
6 My First Hundred Years

9 PART ONE 1894—1916
11 I Try to Fly and Other Early Memories
14 My Father's Principles for Life
15 My Father and My First Magic Tricks
17 My First Playing Cards
18 Learning about Silhouettes
20 My First Magician
22 Going Backstage
26 Some Thoughts on Thurston
27 My First Trip to the Pawn Shop
28 Mother and Magic
31 The Carnegie Library in Ottawa
33 Magic Books
35 My Attack on Magic
36 Practice
38 Know the Terms
39 You Should bean Engineer
40 Cliff Green
42 New York and Coney Island
45 Carny Games
51 Carnival Talk
53 Larry Grey, the Dizzy Wizard
58 My Brother Napier and the Army

59 PART TWO 1917—1938
61 New York 1917
67 New York's Magic Shops
69 Powers' Magic Shop
73 Harry Kellar and Thurston
77 The Short Card
78 Doc Elliott, He Played with a Full Deck
83 The Inner Circle
85 "Just Think of a Card"
87 "The Tricks of the Greeks"
90 Gamblers
92 The Three Card Monte
93 The Masked Man, One of My Heros
95 Hofzinser, Another of My Heros
98 On Using Trick Cards
99 Jeanne Comes into My Life
101 Women in Magic
103 Nate Leipzig
104 My First Professional Engagement
107 The Union League Club
109 Cardini
114 Doc Tarbell
115 Jud Cole
116 Horace Goldin and the Unusual Cane
117 Alfred Benzone, "Originator of Ectoplasm"
120 The Man Who Fooled Vernon
122 Malini's Misdirection
124 Malini, Still Another Hero
127 Malini and the Queen
128 On Meeting Thomas Edison
129 Silhouettes and Agents
130 Mr Houdini and Madame Houdin
131 More Memories of Harry Houdini
136 Houdini and Spiritualism
138 Ted "Male" Vernon
141 Cuba
143 Sawing a Woman in Half in Cuba
144 My Black Magic in Cuba
145 Sam Margules and Dickie the Dunce
149 Mentalists
150 Touring America
152 Jarrow and Van Hoven
156 Dai Yen or Dr Chung
158 Fred Keating
161 Mr Shock and the Rubber Bands
163 Dad Stevens-'The Mysterious Kid"
166 The Fabulous Center Deal
168 Charlie Miller, "I'm a Dice Man"
170 My Life as Edward Brown
171 J Warren Keane
172 William J Hilliar
174 Tommy Downs, "The King of Koins"
179 Harry Blackstone
180 Vernon in Print
185 Jean Hugard
188 The Wonderful Faro Box
193 Paul Fox and FDR
195 Neepie
196 The Cigarette Trick
197 Frank Tobey's Gambling Furniture
200 Garnet Lee, the Chinaman's Toy
203 Secrets
204 Australian Slang
207 Effects Defined
210 Entertaining the Rich
212 The Linking Rings
214 My Brother Napier Dies

215 PART THREE 1939—1963
217 My Harlequin Act
220 Doves Steal the Show at the Rainbow Room
222 Compeer, the Monkey
224 How I Became "The Professor"
226 Fu Manchu
229 The Mind-Reading Box
231 On the Same Bill with Charlie Chaplin
232 Dante
233 Sam Horowitz Becomes Me!
237 From Blueprints to Broken Arms
239 Citizenship
240 Shade
243 With the USO in World War II
244 Dan Cummings
253 Milbourne Christopher and the Cuban Lottery
254 Annemann's Bullet Catch
255 Annemann's Suicide
256 Roy Benson
258 On Being Natural
260 Cruising
263 A Couple of Funny Moments
265 The Old Vaudeville Formula
267 Old Cards New Cards
271 Authority
272 The Father of the Modern Lecture Series
274 Great Tricks
276 Simple Ideas Drive People Crazy
278 "A Pocket Trick"
280 How to be Effective
282 Classics
284 An Original Thought
285 Art in the Craft
286 Traveling Magicians
288 Through the Looking-Glass
290 The Pass
292 On Performing
293 What's Wrong with Magic
293 My Family
298 Afterword

301 INDEX
307 Photo Credits