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Drawing Room Deceptions by Hollingworth - Book


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Drawing Room Deceptions did not become the publisher's fastest selling book ever just by chance. It was the direct result of a series of specific events. The first ingredient was a young English schoolboy willing to invest a full decade of his young life in the study and practice of close-up card magic. He was not satisfied to mimic the tricks of others so he created a repertoire that was totally original. Along the way, he developed a distinct performing style that was gentlemanly yet steeped in sophisticated humor. Following graduation from university, Guy spent a couple of years traveling around the world performing and lecturing for club meetings and convention audiences. Add to this, television appearances around the world such as The World's Greatest Magic in America. This exposure to thousands of magicians established Guy's reputation for possessing impeccable skill along with an arsenal of original material. And one miracle that stood out among all others was his not-to-be-believed, piece-by-piece card restoration, now known to the magic world at large as The Reformation. The final piece of the puzzle was putting all of this knowledge into a single book, Drawing Room Deceptions. The added fact that this entire book was written, illustrated and designed by young Mr. Hollingworth simply makes this story that much more amazing.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the magic world was desperate for the release of this book and when it finally did appear, the response was overwhelming. The presses had barely stopped spinning when it went to a second printing and it is now in its fifth edition.

Customers knew they would be thrilled with the sleights, theories and routines that fill the 320 pages of Drawing Room Deceptions but they were surprised and delighted with the book's physical appearance. The two-color stamping on the cover, a frontispiece featuring a formal portrait of the author, marbled end-sheets and distinctive typography and artwork give this book the appearance of a classic, nineteenth century magic textbook.

Pages: 311 - 6" x 9" - Hardbound with 2-color stamping on cover and spine. Marbled endsheets.

Here is a peek inside Drawing Room Deceptions

EPILOGUE during which a method for tearing and restoring a card is discussed.

I have always had something of a love-hate relationship with magic; I certainly feel passionate about it much of the time, but I have a tremendous need of completely dissociating myself from it on regular occasions, or I tend to find it incredibly tedious. Magic incorporates elements which I love, and those which I cannot stand. Amongst the latter are the mass of marketed tricks and dealer halls at conventions; that is not through any snobbery or dislike for those who make their living out of producing and selling such items, but rather out of a complete lack of interest. I am aware that by ignoring this side of conjuring I am denying myself many fine effects that I will never otherwise come across, that could make valuable additions to my repertoire, but nonetheless, I have never understood the fascination with the dealer items. For some reason I vividly remember mentioning this incredulity to a colleague at an early convention that I attended, and being met with his philosophical answer that "they are all looking for the one trick in amongst all the others that will make them famous."

Despite being impressed at my relatively early age by the profundity of this statement of an older and wiser performer, I always had my doubts about the validity of what he had said; apart from feeling that it was unlikely that such a thought had ever crossed the minds of most of the people who were present, surely there could be no trick that could actually make your name, nor even distinguish you particularly from other fellows in the field. Whilst I still have my doubts that such a trick can be found on any dealer's table, or for that matter in any book or magazine, I have been truly amazed by the apparent interest that has been aroused by a trick which I came up with mainly to satisfy personal curiosity, rather than as any particular marketing ploy whereby I would become better known. In fact it was in my first year at university, where I had been fortunate enough to be allocated a room of my own, that the beginnings of such a trick came about.

As the work load was rather light to start off with, and since the campus was small and frequently devoid of evening entertainment, I initially quite often found myself in my room with time to kill. Having always intended to perform a torn and restored card of some description, I had recently learned and been very impressed by J.C. Wagner's method from his book Seven Secrets, and had set to work on possible ways of effecting a visible restoration of each piece. Although quite successful, this made the discrepancy of the final piece not being restored all the worse, and I decided that I would try to come up with a solution to this point. Progress was significantly hampered by the location of the only mirror in the room, which was above the sink, causing a multitude of dropped cards over the months to become slightly damp and unusable. Of the various methods that came out of these otherwise unproductive evenings, I had very little confidence in any, but nonetheless felt that from a theoretical point of view I had come some way towards solving the problem.

It was only after showing one version to a few friends that I became persuaded that it may actually be worth my performing it. After a while of doing so, I began to realize that it was not the method that was significantly wrong, but more the lack of practice, that I was now getting through performance. After a while, other conjurors expressed a certain interest in the method, and it was for my first lecture, which was at the Opus Isle of Man Convention, that I was persuaded to release the method (which to my amazement had seemingly fooled some people). It was released on video, being a simpler and quicker method for the novice such as myself to convey the workings than in textual form. I decided to release it as a strictly limited edition, not because of any desire to keep it exclusive, nor because I thought that it was a great trick, but simply as I cynically thought that since no-one would be interested in a complicated trick by someone whom they had never heard of, by releasing it as such, a few people might actually buy it, perceiving it to be more important than it was.

In fact, it seemed that interest was such that this ploy was unnecessary; I have frequently regretted making this pledge of the limited edition, as I have been met with many offers since to buy the tape. However, being a man of my word, I have not sold any since the end of that limited edition, nor will I ever do so; however, that was over three years ago, and I have decided that it is now time to discuss the method in another format, that being this book. It is my sincere hope that this will not cause offence to anyone who purchased the tape, as they have now had at least three years of exclusivity, should they wish to have made use of it, and it seems to me that if anyone else is truly desirous of learning the method (and I fear that they will have to be so in order to comprehend the following essay), they should be entitled to do so even if they did not happen to be on hand to buy the tape.

And so, by way of a conclusion to this book, there follows the complete description, with a number of possible variations, of what is arguably my favorite trick, and that which certainly has been kinder to me than any other, which has come to be called The Reformation.

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Customer Reviews (showing 1 - of 8)
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Good book Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on March 19th, 2012
Good book, good tricks, good author, good slights. Not difficult as some may say, well, they're just lazy and should stick to swengali.
4 of 6 magicians found this helpful.
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Not exactly my cup of tea. BUT! Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on April 11th, 2018
Before I say anything about this book, please keep in mind that my style of card magic is impromptu, shuffled deck in use type of card magic.
This book does NOT contain many impromptu effects.

However!

I still think that this is an amazing book. I put the waving the aces in my repertoir right away and I began to experiment with some of his ideas which will need a little preparation. The reason for that is that they will often leave you very clean at the end and the methods are so smart. Or, if you dont like the method you can keep the amazing plot(Cassandra).

Also you will see how Guy is thinking about magic how he is thinking ahead, and that is also very inspiring.
The bottom line:
- Not many impromptu effects
- You will learn some great tricks with a little preparation
- You will be inspired by some great methods and great stories and you will have your own ideas
- You will learn great sleights(false deals, shifts etc)
- Buy it anyway!
2 of 2 magicians found this helpful.
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A Classic Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on March 14th, 2018
Well written with great effects and top shelf sleights. This book is a classic to be studied by those that want to seperate themselve from the pack
1 of 1 magicians found this helpful.
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One of the best magic books Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on January 4th, 2021
It is my first magic book,mand I recommend this book for everyone. There are amazing tricks and it is not too hard to understand. My favorite trick in this book is The Cassandra Quandary.
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Not bad at all. Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on March 18th, 2020
Some tricks def have better methods to accomplish them. Some tricks need prior knowledge or accompanied books to fully accomplish but I still say 5 stars for the price you get a good amount of material and information.
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a modern classic Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on February 12th, 2020
I've enjoyed each page of this book,Guy has truely created a new way of performing card magic. I absolutely raccomand it.
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Inspirational Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on August 26th, 2019
I enjoyed reading the book very much. The author has an elegant style and I often felt I was reading a novel, not a technical description of some complex sleights.

I don't think I will perform most of the effects as they are written in the book, however I've found enough brilliant ideas and moves that I enjoy practicing and I can apply them in my magic.

My favorite effects are the simple handling of loading cards under the card box, the in-the-hand version of triumph and the oil and water with the optical alignment move. There are some interesting sleights as well that are fun to practice, such as the palming during an all around square up and the simple version of the center deal.
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Excellent book. Report this review
Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on June 18th, 2019
Very good teaching as well as thought provoking.
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