This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/26/2022
Hugard, Jean (Gerard Rodney Boyce). Hugard the Magician. Melbourne & Sydney: Syd Day the Printer, ca. 1920. Handsome bust portrait lithograph of the great Australian magician. 36 x 25 ½”. Margins restored and trimmed, old folds visible; B. Rare. Few modern magicians realize that Hugard was a successful performing magician before he settled in New York and became the doyen of modern magic writers. In his early years, he presented an elaborate stage show that featured a daring bullet catch among other spectacular feats. (In fact, Hugard was shot during one performance of the feat, but sustained only minor injuries.) Hugard moved to America in the 1920s, and worked at Coney Island and other venues. But as his performing career wound down, he became a professional writer, chronicling and translating many of magic’s most famous secrets by writing or co-authoring some of the most important works in the literature. From his pen sprang seminal works including The Royal Road to Card Magic, Expert Card Technique, Hugard’s Magic Monthly, and, at least in part, helped complete John Northern Hilliard’s classic tome, Greater Magic.