A Choice of Miracles by Eric C. Lewis.

Any time someone sets down in print their life’s work, it deserves your attention. When that person has spent some 60 years performing, writing, inventing and thinking magic, you can be sure it will be no ordinary book. Eric Lewis is just such a person, and there is certainly nothing ordinary about A Choice of Miracles.

This two-time winner of the Magic Castle’s “Stage Magician of the Year” award needs no introduction to the magic fraternity. He is one of the art’s most respected practitioners, and this is his life’s story. Through these pages you will see a young Eric Lewis grow into a polished performer. You will gain insight into Eric’s personal friends such as John Ramsay, Will Goldston, Robert Harbin, Dante, and many, many more. You’ll read dozens of fascinating anecdotes told by a master story teller. And, of course, Eric will teach you his magic. Whether you prefer children’s magic, mentalism, close-up, platform, cabaret, stage, comedy or serious magic, A Choice of Miracles has something for everyone. It contains dozens of time-tested effects skimmed from a lifetime of performing. Many consider Eric Lewis the finest illustrator in magic today, and Volume I of this trilogy contains 185 detailed examples of his artwork.

Book Number One covers Eric’s life and magic up until the outbreak of World War Two. Volume II (which is already written and illustrated) is even larger than this first book. Volume III will continue the story up to the present, and complete the set. We fully expect this set of books to become a standard work in all magic libraries. No working pro or collector can afford to be without it. We take great pleasure in offering this book to our fellow magicians.

Contents:

10 Publisher’s Note
11 Introduction (Charlie Miller)
13 Foreword

15 Chapter I In The Beginning
19 The Great Super-Colossal Jumbo Card-Pip Trick
24 The Alarm Clock Production
26 An Introductory Item
28 Four In Hand

33 Chapter II And Then Came The Magicians
35 The “Pump And Guess” Card Discovery

43 Chapter III “Well I Never”
44 A Broken And Restored Wand
45 Visibly Through
47 The Multiplying Wands
50 Merely A Mistake
52 A Useful Forcing Device (Divinadisc)
54 Magical Pictures
56 Playing With Fire
57 The Book Of Spells

61 Chapter IV A Magical Mentality
63 Off And On The Ribbon
65 The Strange Letter
66 The Walking-Cane Suspension
70 Silk Over Head, Plus

73 Chapter V Commercial Magic In the Early Thirties
74 Through a Half-Inch Hole
77 The Locked Books Release
79 Card Castles
81 A Self-Erecting Card-Castle Table
83 The Case of the Curious Cubes
85 Curiouser and Curiouser
89 The “Miracle” Passing Cards
91 The Improved “Zen’s” Switch
93 The Queen of the Air

99 Chapter VI Oriental Frolic
101 The Penetrating Flower Pot
104 Comedy Flower Growth
105 The Chinese Hat
106 Dual Lantern Production
108 A Modern Chinese Lamp Stand Production
111 A Multiple Lantern Production
113 A Surprising Lantern
114 The Mystery of the Triple Temple

119 Chapter VII “…Except Thee and Me…”
128 If All The World Were Wine
129 The Convocational Jacks
131 An Everlit Match
132 Chris Van Bern’s Mirror Mystery

135 Chapter VIII Three From ’33
136 Archie Byford’s Living and Dead Test
137 Cups and Balls For the Stage
145 The Shrinking Wand

149 Distant Drums
150 The Art of the Magician, by The Great Levante, 1936
152 Magic as a Business, by The Great Levante, 1937
154 Novel Nemocracy With Numbers
156 A Remarkable Record
159 The Obedient Cigarette Paper
160 Hallucination
163 The Educated Silk
165 The Unexpected Glass

169 Chapter X Magic For Moderns
170 A Convincing Color-Change Wand
172 The Vanishing Tube
174 The Quadrifid Cards
176 The Golden Arrow

XI The Calm Before
180 The Eric Lewis Natural False Count
181 “A Little Trick with Eight Cards”
182 The Sharper Sharped
184 The Natural Put-Back Count
185 The ‘Streamlined” Cards to Pocket
189 Fantasm
191 The Big-Little Joker Transposition
193 The Electric Bulb Penetration
196 The Mutilated Note
198 Two-Color Paper Routine

XII The Storm