The Annotated Royal Road to Card Magic by Mark Lewis

My name is Mark Lewis. This is the book that changed my life. In fact, I suspect it changed the life of a lot of other card magicians too. The Royal Road to Card Magic was first published in 1949 and 70 years later it is still considered the standard work in card magic. A terrific study plan which if you follow carefully (as I did) you cannot possibly fail to achieve proficiency as a card magician. You can start the book knowing nothing about card tricks but by the time you get to the end you will become an expert. Of course, a lot of things have happened in card magic over the last 70 years since the book was first published so I decided to add some of my own ideas, variations and improvements to the material which I have performed for decades. I must have done something right since legendary card magician and memory expert Harry Lorayne wrote this after reading my manuscript:

“It has been a long time since I couldn’t sleep when I’d just acquired a new magic book – had to finish reading it before I turned off the bedside lamp and closed my eyes! This book did it!
I don’t know what price Mark will put on this book, but whatever that price I assure you that it will be worth much, much, more for you than that amount! (Aside from learning some terrific new ideas it brought back wonderful memories for me. I knew Jean Hugard and Fred Braue personally. I know that they’d be very pleased with what he’s accomplished here.)

I don’t want to get specific – mentioning the many items that I found to be so great. It’s better for you to come across all of them as you read, decide for yourself.”

And I hope you do ……………. Mark Lewis
Besides the annotations Mark Lewis added an appendix, which originally was planned to become a book on its own, Mark’s very own book on card magic. Being the generous kind of person he is, he decided to add this book to his annotations free of charge. Thus, you really get two ebooks in one. The contents of the appendix is as follows:

• Chapter One: Easy Card Tricks
  • The Teaspoon Trick
  • Twenty-One Card Trick
  • One Ahead Mindreading
  • Multiple Aces
  • Do As I Do
• Chapter Two: Showmanship And Presentation
  • 1. Never Reveal How A Trick Is Done
  • 2. Never Repeat A Trick Before The Same Audience
  • 3. Do Not Say What You Are Going To Do Before You Do It
  • 4. Practice, Practice, Practice
  • 5. Use Patter To Make Your Magic Entertaining
• Chapter Three: Controls
  • The Key Card
  • The Corner Crimp
  • The Little Finger Break
  • The Injog
  • The Pass
  • The Bluff Pass
• Chapter Four: Discoveries
  • Stuck!
  • Leapfrog
  • Air Pressure
  • The Magic Breath
  • There It Is!
• Chapter Five: Forcing
  • Criss Cross Force
  • Tell Me When To Stop Force
  • The Glide Force
  • Hindu Shuffle Force
  • The Classic Force

1st edition 2019, PDF 399 pages.
word count: 156000 which is equivalent to 624 standard pages of text