"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? . . . The Shadow knows!" And who knew The Shadow better than his creator, Walter B. Gibson. Relatively few people have heard of Gibson, but many more are familiar with The Shadow having heard the program on the Blue Coal Radio Program in the 1930s and read the Street & Smith Shadow novels. Walter B. Gibson's life and career come out from behind The Shadow in this biography. It covers his youth in Philadelphia, his development as a writer and magician, his wives, including the third, (Litzka, who was a harpist and magician in her own right), his time living in Maine and upstate New York, and his later years and death. In addition to being credited with creating The Shadow (he used the pseudonym Maxwell Grant), Gibson wrote 187 books, contributed 668 articles to periodicals, created 283 stories for The Shadow Magazine, wrote 48 separate syndicated feature columns, reported the adventures of The Shadow and Blackstone the magician in 394 comic books and newspaper strips, and helped develop 147 radio scripts and many other works under numerous pseudonyms. Gibson has invented many widely used magic tricks and traveled with and befriended Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston, Harry Blackstone, Sr., and Joseph Dunninger.

Written for the amateur magician, this illustrated guide offers 50 easy, effective, and well-known tricks that are used by professionals: cards, handkerchiefs, mental magic, and more. The author includes an overview for each trick, shows how the act appears to the audience, and details both the mechanisms and the presentation. 63 illustrations.

Clear explanations and illuminating sequential photography reveal how to perform a series of close-up magic tricks before a small audience, providing tips on the best angles for presentation, suitable dialogue, and advice on hard-to-find props

Revised with dozens of illustrations complementing this easy-to-understand classic, this guide to magic spans all age groups with tricks that have baffled both children and adults.