Dai Vernon's Ultimate Card Secrets by Lewis Ganson - Book

AKA Dai Vernon's Ultimate Secrets of Card Magic.

This work was planned to be the last volume in Dai Vernon's Inner Card Secrets series. However, due to water damage caused by a fire the typed manuscript was lost. It took several years to recover from this mishap and therefore this last volume was originally published much later than the first three volumes (Inner Secrets of Card Magic, More Inner Secrets of Card Magic, Further Inner Secrets of Card Magic). The wait was justified because it was and still is one of the important works of card magic!

No serious card man can exist without reading and studying this work.

Section One consists of 17 items, mostly complete effects, along with the extraordinary flourish, The Perfect Circle of Cards. There are several items from Larry Jennings that are among the earliest in his published repertoire. 

Section Two consists of "Card Sleights and Moves," including 37 items in nine chapters. There is a chapter each on two-handed and table passes, including Vernon's "kiss" completion action for the classic pass. There is a great chapter on finessed throw-offs and steps for following up a participant peek. There is work on the short card, false cuts, controls, and more.

In Section Three, "Friends of Dai Vernon," there are 20 more items in the remaining five chapters from contributors including Alex Elmsley, Roy Walton, Ross Bertram, Fred Kaps, Francis Carlyle (an interesting two-card transposition without a duplicate), and more. Included in this section is Jay Ose's single deck Do As I Do, which is certainly a modern classic, still effective despite the exposure of its method in William Goldman's novel, Magic (courtesy of his then technical advisor, Richard Kaufman).

This is truly a wealth of material that was cutting edge at its time, and yet substantial enough for modern times. Out of print 1st edition, and we have only one in stock!