March, Carl: Magic Made Easy ©1953 Croydon Publishing, NY Softcover, 6.5x9.5", 96 pages

Image courtesy e-Bay seller CosanostraMagic

Comments (by Cosanostra Magic): Carl March was a pseudonym for the novelist and screenwriter, Sid Fleischman. Mr. Fleischman had begun publishing novels under his own name by 1953, and his regular publisher suggested he change his name for this "rather shabby craft publisher." (He took Carl from Carl Stenquist, and March from his birth month.)  Illustrated with over 200 photographs [by Willis I. Deits], the nine chapters contained strong material under the headings "Intimate Tricks," "Basic Card Sleights," "Magic With Cards," "Coin Magic," "Conjuring With Cigarettes," "Stage Tricks," "Card Tricks," "Card Fans and Flourishes," and "Hints to the Amateur Magician." The most fascinating aspect of Magic Made Easy is that it included, for every item in the book, a recommended practice time required to learn the effect. This was a helpful guide to the reader as to which tricks were the most difficult, and it must surely give more educated readers considerable cause for second-guessing. A few selected practice times:

    Classic coin palm: 50 minutes
    The thumb tie: 25 minutes
    The famous three-shell game: 1 hour, 30 minutes
    Top card palm: 10 minutes
    Double lift: 15 minutes
    The secret coin fold: 35 minutes
    Torn and restored newspaper: 1 hour
    Multiplying cigars: 40 minutes
    Classic force: 1 hour
    Three-card monte: 50 minutes
    The card fan: 2 hours, 30 minutes
    One-hand fanning: 1 hour, 45 minutes
    Charlier cut: 50 minutes

The book contains one special item that you may be familiar with, "The Trick Without a Name." This is the effect in which a spectator writes his name on a page in a magazine. The page is torn out of the magazine and burned, and the spectator sees his name up to the last minute. After "the magician pronounces a mystical incantation," the magazine is opened and the page has returned, still signed! Fleischman published the effect earlier, and under his own name, in 1945, in J.G. Thompson, Jr.'s My Best. Variations on this trick are still popular today.

Content (numbers are not page numbers): 

1 Part One: Intimate Tricks
2 The Peculiar Match and Pin
3 Penetration
4 The Broken Match
5 The Torn and Restored Paper Napkin
6 The Lifesavers and Cord
7 The Object Vanishes
8 How to Cash a Check
9 The Cut and Restored Dollar Bill
10 The Homing Paper Ball
11 The Confounding Cocktail Pick
12 The Headless Match
13 Restoring the String
14 The Spools and Ribbons
15 The Itinerant Sponge Ball
16 The Wandering Spools
17 The Indestructible Newspaper
18 The Anti-Scientific Safety Pins
19 The Thumb Tie
20 The Famous Three-Shell Game

21 Part Two: Basic Card Sleights
22 To Palm a Card
23 To Draw Off and Palm the Bottom Card
24 To Draw Off and Palm the Top Card
25 False Shuffle for the Entire Deck
26 To Pass the Bottom Card to the Top of the Pack
27 To Pass the Top Card to the Bottom of the Park
28 The Crimp
29 False Shuffle for One Card
30 The False Cut
31 The Double Lift
32 The Top Change

33 Part Three: Magic With Cards
34 A Gambler's Trick
35 Quicker Than the Eye
36 With a One-Way Deck
37 The Educated Card
38 The Card and the Hair
39 A Four-Ace Trick
40 Striking the Deck
41 Through the Hand
42 The Shadow
43 The Perplexing Pack
44 Strange Affair
45 Knife It
46 Getting the Deck In Order
47 Beneath the Foot

48 Part Four: Coin Magic
49 The Palm
50 Rotation Vanish
51 The Thumb Palm
52 The Traveling Coin
53 The Coin in the Lap
54 The Finger Palm
55 The Secret Coin Fold
56 Vanish From Below
57 The Automatic Vanish
58 Up the Sleeve
59 Again the Sleeve
60 The Coin Roll
61 The Coin in the Ball of Wool

62 Part Five: Conjuring With Cigarettes
63 The Magnetized Cigarettes
64 The Cigarette in the Handkerchief
65 The Pivot Vanish
66 The Fist Vanish
67 The Pinch Vanish
68 The Phantom Cigarette
69 The Cigarette Divided

70 Part Six: Stage Tricks
71 The Class Through the Table
72 The Trick Without a Name
73 The Master Memory Act
74 The Torn and Restored Newspaper
75 The Multiplying Cigars
76 The Cut and Restored Handkerchief
77 How to Produce a Rabbit From a Hat

78 Part Seven: Card Tricks
79 The Force
80 To Get a Peek
81 The Mental Selection
82 The Wandering Card
83 Prediction
84 The Gossiping Lady
85 Double Discovery
86 More Adventures with the Gossiping Lady
87 Three-Card Monte

88 Part Eight: Card Fans and Flourishes
89 Springing From Hand to Hand
90 The Card Fan
91 The Blank Fan
92 One-Hand Fanning
93 The Vanishing Cards
94 To Cut the Deck With One Hand
95 The End to End Shuffle
96 The Giant Fan