Kaplan, George: The Fine Art of Magic ©1948 Fleming Book Company Hardcover, w/dj, 341 pages

Image courtesy eBay seller Slacks!

Comments: Edited by Jean Hugard, illustrations by Francis Rigney.

Contents: (portions of the contents were obtained from Denis Behr's excellent Magic Book Archive)

vii Forword

1 Technique for the Short Card
4 The Short Card, The Corner Short
5 The Secret Gadget
5 Advantages of the Corner-Short Procedures
6 The Pencil Dot
8 Avoiding Contrasts
8 To Bring the Corner Short to the Top of the Pack
9 The Kaplan Fan Cut11 To bring the corner-short to the Bottom of the Pack
12 To Control a Selected Card by Means of the Corner-Short
12 The Kaplan Control of a Glimpsed Card by Means of the Corner-Short
14 Retaining Control of several Glimpsed Cards by Means of the Corner-Short
16 Controlling Three Selected Cards by Means of the Corner-Short
18 To bring a Prearranged Packet above a Chosen Card by Means of the Corner-Short
19 Obtaining a Desired Packet Instantly by Means of the Corner-Short
19 Using the Corner-Short to Retain a Prearranged Deck in Order

21 Subtle Sleights
24 Master Card Control
27 The Riffle-Force - A New Angle
29 The Gambler´s False-Cut
30 The Peek
33 The Step
35 To Glimpse or Sight a Card Secretly
37 Impromptu Marking of Cards

39 Tricks Employing The Corner-Short
42 Out-of-the-Room Selection
43 The X-Ray Location
44 Double-Back Corner-Short Location
46 Mind-Reading with Two Subjects
46 The "Impossible" Discovery
47 The Twenty-Sixth Card Location - Using a Corner-Short
48 Au Naturelle
51 The Topsy-Turvy Fan

55 Close Up Card Tricks
56 Will-o´-the-Wisp Routine
65 New Card Affinity
67 Revello Card Circle
69 The "Stop!" Fan Discovery
71 Fan Force
72 Kaplan´s Clock Trick
74 A Lesson in Misdirection
79 Rex Card Mystery
88 Multiple Do As I Do
90 Follow the Arrow
93 The Card in the Shoe
94 The Royal Assembly
101 The Captain Kidd Card (First Version)
103 Second Version
105 Magnetic Thought Transference


107 Platform Card Tricks
110 The Lie Detector
113 Giant Trio-Flight
119 Card-Stabbing
124 The Kaplan Rising Cards
128 The Card in the Balloon
134 A Winning Wager
137 The Kaplan Torn and Restored Card
141 The Chameleon Card

145 Mind Reading Tricks with Cards
148 The Calcutta Mystery (First Version)
152 Second Version
153 Think
155 Do As I Do
158 The Princess Card Trick
163 The Yogi´s Secret
165 The New Brain-Wave Deck
167 Mahatma Thought Control
173 Psychic Sympathy
175 Twenty-One Cards A Double Prediction
179 Crystal Clairvoyance
181 Dial
182 Information, Please!
185 The Medium's Card Test
186 Yogi Spelling Test
188 The Eighteen-Cards Spelling Trick
191 The Triple Spelling Trick
193 The Three-Billet Test No. 1
194 The Three-Billet Test No. 2

197 More Mind Reading Tricks
200 The Trance Quick-and-Dead Test
204 A Capitol Problem
209 Do-As-I-Do Telephone Test
211 An Improved Sealed-Message Reading
214 Mind-Figures
218 The Spirit-Slates and Magazine Test
219 Slate Move
223 A Cigarette-Paper Pellet Switch
226 The Three-Billet Test No. 3
230 Forcing Three Numbers
231 The Odd-Even Force

233 Coin Tricks
236 The Kaplan Coin Switch
237 The Kaplan Okito-Box Presentation
241 I Do As You Do
242 The Stack of Quarters
248 The Sympathetic Coins
251 Coin-Extraction Perfected

255 Selected Tricks
258 The Spirit Handkerchief
260 A Billiard-Ball Transposition
263 The Brema Tube and Bill
267 The Cigarette Vanish in Handkerchief
268 The Trap-Door `Kerchief
272 Tying the Knot for the Rope Trick
275 The Game of "Thirty-One" Played with a Dice
279 The Fifteen Match-Sticks Puzzle

283 Miscellaneous Plaftorm Tricks
286 Ben Ali´s Rope
292 The Lemon Trick
301 Card, Crystal Ball, and Panties
305 The Gypsy Thread Trick
313 The Comedy of Errors
319 The Kaplan Nest of Boxes Routine

329 Concluding Observations

337 Index