In The Collected Works of Alex Elmsley, the magic of this extraordinary inventor is brought together for the first time. Gathered here are his published tricks and an equal number of previously unpublished items. Much of this material has been guarded jealously by the privileged of magic, and some of it has been kept a secret from everyone. All of it is innovative, astonishing and marvelously entertaining.Volume II contains the pageant of scintillating Elmsley magic. A remarkable collection of more than 103 exquisitely conceived, entertaining and unfathomable tricks, ranging from baffling predictions and feats of mind-reading to glittering coin magic and bewildering card mysteries. Many Elmsley classics are included, plus original flourishes, a chapter on tricks with the faro shuffle, and a detailed description of Elmsley’s “Cardworks,” a brilliant act that was one of Elmsley’s crowning achievements.

512 pages.

Written by Stephen Minch and illustrated by Amado Narvaez.

Contents:

THE MICROCOSM OF MAGIC

CHAPTER ONE: Flourishes
The Tower Bridge Cut
Little-finger Spinner
The Multiplying Aces
The Rosette
Two-ball Roll

CHAPTER TWO: Hidden Thoughts and Future Deeds
The Fan Prediction
Hidebound Forecast
The Mexican Prediction
Face Your Brothers
A Delicate Balance
It’s a Small World
Halfway to Heaven
Verbum Sapienti
Open Intruder
Brownwaves I1
Brownwaves I11
Multiple Mind Reading
Double-cross
Like a Rolling Bone
Failure
Auto-prediction
Divina-sign:
A Card from Cagliostro
Aussi-mental
Animal, Vegetable and Mineral
The Octal Pencil
Verbum Veritas
Pack of Lies

CHAPTER THREE: Exotica
Still Taking Three
Point of Departure
Economy Class Departure
The Fiddle with the Biddle in the Middle
The Red and the Blue
The Shy Chameleon
Turn-about Card
A Small Revelation
Fool’s Mate
Jubilee
Separating the Men from the Boys
A Problem with Duplicate Identities
The Imp of the Inverse
Sum Talk of Alexander
Switchy-coo
Half Packed
Second Link
Diamond Cut Diamond
Signing Off
Signature Piece
Shakedown

CHAPTER FOUR: Marsupial Favorites
Pocketpick
Pockets Full of Miracles
Reluctant Cards to Pocket
Duplicitous Cards to Pocket
Flight Plan
En Voyage
Processional
Daley Double
Between Your Palms
Only Child
Incommunicado
CHAPTER FIVE: Coinages
Devaluation
Revaluation
Boston Two-step
The Astral Coin Rides Again
Milling a Coin
Sucker Silver
The Spider’s Treasury

CHAPTER SIX: Faro Tapestries
Indulgences
Deck Preparation for Faro Shufles
Weave Corrections for Miscuts
Placing a Key at Twenty-sixth Position
The Mathematics of the Weave Shuffle
Out- and In-weaves
The Odd Pack and Weave
Equivalent Odd Pack
Returning a Pack to the Same Order
Solving the Shufle Equation
Stack Transformations
Royal Flush Deal
The Constant Stack
The Restacking Pack
Binary Translocations
Double Control
Penelope’s Principle
Penny Wise
Prediction by Proxy
Tuppence
Meet Me on the Road
A Woven and Cut Case
Autopilot
Direct Link (Featuring Bill Reid’s “Automatic Discovery”)
The Custodial Card
The Fan and Weave Controls
The Fan and Weave Control
The Fan and Weave Double Control
Brainweave
The Obedient Faro
Spell by the Numbers
Paraspell
Collinspell
Arab Roto-pack
What a Party!
Late Night Location
Auto-discovery
The Elmsley Rising Card

CHAPTER SEVEN: Stray Stacks
Computer Dating
Empty and Full
Wedded Ambitions
Topsy-turvy Stay-stack
Parity Failure
Tell Me Three Times
Future Stock
Through Darkest Peirce
Blind Stud
Mental Boxer
Kingfisher
Pursuit of Thought

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Dazzle Act
The Dazzle Act
The Properties
Fate’s Datebook
Cold Steel
The Tale of the Old Timer
Dazzle
Tour de Force
Notes on Structure

Bibliography of Works by Alex Elmsley