pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 23
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 23 | INTRODUCTION again we have a purely local and personal history, without general value. Thomas Frost wrote three books relating to the history of magic, commencing about 1870. This list included 'Circus Life and Circus Celebrities,' "The Old Show- men and the Old London Fairs," and "Lives of the Conjurers." These were the best books of their kind up to the time of their publication, but they are marked by glaring errors, showing that Frost compiled rather than investigated, or, more properly speaking, that his in- vestigations never went much further than Morley's "Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair." Charles Bertram who wrote "Isn't it Wonderful?" closed the nincteenth-century list of English writers on magic, but his work is marred by mis-statements which even the humblest of magicians could refute, and, like Frost, he drew heavily on writers who preceded him. So far, in the twentieth century, the most notable con- tribution to the literature of magic is Henry Ridgely Evans' "The Old and the New Magic," but Mr. Evans falls into the error of his predecessors in accepting as authoritative the history of magic and magicians fur- nished by Robert-Houdin. He has made no effort whatever to verify or refute the statements made by Robert-Houdin, but has merely compiled and re-written them to suit his twentieth-century readers. The true historian does not compile. He delves for facts and proofs, and having found these he arrays his indisputable facts, his uncontrovertible proofs, to refute the statements of those who have merely compiled. That is what I have done to prove my case against Robert- [r6 ] |