"Christopher Priest - The Prestige" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

made paperback. The cover painting depicted a dinner-jacketed stage magician pointing his
hands expressively towards a wooden cabinet, from which a young lady was emerging. She was
wearing a dazzling smile and a costume which for the period was probably considered saucy.
Under the author's name was printed: "Edited and annotated by Lord Colderdale."
At the bottom of the cover, in bold white lettering, was the blurb: "The Famous Oath-
Protected Book of Secrets".
A longer and much more descriptive blurb on the back cover went into greater detail:


Originally published as a strictly limited edition in 1905 in London, this book was sold only to


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professional magicians who were prepared to swear an oath of secrecy about its contents. First
edition copies are now exceedingly rare, and virtually impossible for general readers to obtain.
Made publicly available for the first time, this new edition is completely unabridged and
contains all the original illustrations, as well as the notes and supplementary text provided by
Britain's Earl of Colderdale, a noted contemporary _amateur_ of magic.
The author is Alfred Borden, inventor of the legendary illusion The New Transported Man.
Borden, whose stage name was Le Professeur de la Magie, was in the first decade of this
century the leading stage illusionist. Encouraged in his early years by John Henry Anderson, and
as a prot├йg├й of Nevil Maskelyne"s, Borden was a contemporary of Houdini, David Devant, Chung
Ling Soo and Buatier de Kolta. He was based in London, England, but frequently toured the
United States and Europe.
While not strictly speaking an instruction manual, this book with its broad understanding of
magical methods will give both laymen and professionals startling insights into the mind of one of
the greatest magicians who ever lived.


It was amusing to discover that one of my ancestors had been a magician, but I had no
special interest in the subject. I happen to find some kinds of conjuring tedious; card tricks,
especially, but many others too. The illusions you sometimes see on television are impressive,
but I have never felt curious about how the effects are in fact achieved. I remember someone
once saying that the trouble with magic was that the more a magician protects his secrets, the
more banal they turn out to be.
Alfred Borden's book contained a long section on card tricks, and another described tricks
with cigarettes and coins. Explanatory drawings and instructions accompanied each one. At the
back of the book was a chapter about stage illusions, with many illustrations of cabinets with
hidden compartments, boxes with false bottoms, tables with lifting devices concealed behind
curtains, and other apparatus. I glanced through some of these pages.
The first half of the book was not illustrated, but consisted of a long account of the author's
life and outlook on magic. It began with the following words:


"I write in the year 1901.
"My name, my real name, is Alfred Borden. The story of my life is the story of the secrets by
which I have lived my life. They are described in this narrative for the first and last time; this is the
only extant copy.
"I was born in 1856 on the eighth day of the month of May, in the coastal town of Hastings. I
was a healthy, vigorous child. My father was a tradesman of that borough, a master wheelwright