This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/26/2024
COLLINS, Stanley (1881 – 1966). Six Instructional Magic Notebooks. 1890s – 1930s. Including four plain 8vo notebooks filled in Collins’ neat hand with explanations of nearly every type of conjuring effect (with the exception of stage illusions), including card effects, magic squares, tricks with small apparatus, mentalism, ball and card and coin sleights, color changes, many versions of the Spelling Bee, and other material of a relatively diverse nature. One notebook is devoted to patter and jokes. A very large fifth notebook includes many more effects in Collin’s holograph, the contents filling nearly the entire 350+ pp. book. A final notebook is comprised of clippings collecting the column Collins wrote for Will Goldston, “My Tricks and How to do Them,” the illustrated articles pasted into a 4to scrapbook. Notebook No. 2 includes several charming color illustrations of Collins signed by “Alba,” clipped from mailing covers which reached Collins while on the front in WWII. In all, a remarkable record of the magic tricks invented and performed by this influential and thoughtful magician of the Edwardian Era.The contents of these notebooks are remarkable in their scope and completeness, and the entries are generally written in full form, in an exceptionally clear and understandable style, frequently accompanied by humorous asides and comments (a few poems and rhymes are peppered throughout the notebooks). Unlike similar personal records describing tricks, Collins has recorded his methods and information about performing the effects in a style that is anything but shorthand. Rather, the material is understandable to virtually any reasonably well-informed reader. Some descriptions are accompanied by revealing (if crude) diagrams.