Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

by Jim Steinmeyer

Book Overview

Now in paperback comes Jim Steinmeyer's astonishing chronicle of half a century of illusionary innovation, backstage chicanery, and keen competition within the world of magicians. Lauded by today's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786712260
• ISBN13: 9780786712267
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Very Magical Book

Discovered this remarkable book in "Shakespeare & Co." the legendary bookshop in Paris. The title and cover art grabbed me and I jumped right in to the delightful stories, wonderfully recounted by (to my amazement) my old friend Jim Steinmeyer. He is the ingenious mind behind some of modern magic's grandest moments--the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty and many more. My traveling partner, MaxPaul, and I spent the balance of our European trip taking turns reading, and loving, "Elephants." Jim Steinmeyer is a highly-respected and noted illusion designer, magic historian, and, best of all, a enthusiast for all things magic and magical. Jim and I worked together at Walt Disney Imagineering and he is the real thing. He often introduced us to new and thrilling ways to make our "Disney magic" even more magical--in theme parks, resort night clubs, and Disney's Broadway productions. Make "HIDING THE ELEPHANT" a visible presence in your library. I have mine on the living room coffee table for easy access--and to share with every visitor. As an unexpected bonus, the book also contains several deft illustrations of legendary magicians created by a living legend (also one-time Imagineer) William (my friend "Bill") Stout. (WIlliam Stout's books on there own are as magical as anything in print!)

An Instant Classic

This book is a classic. It is not only one of the best books on the history of magic ever written, but is also a rich portrait of both Victorian and Edwardian England. The magicians become full characters in Steinmeyer's hands. He shows us some of their secrets, yes, but in a full-bodied manner that keeps us mezmerized, even after we know how the trick was done. As a magician myself I fully agree that a trick is never the secret or sleight itself, but is how this sleight is used in an act of fantasy. Learning the "trick," as Steinmeyer says, IS like turning to the last page of a mystery novel. You may know the ending, but you will not appreciate the fullness of the story. This is easily one of my favorite books. I loved it so much I immediately ordered his other books. I started reading Art & Artifice next, and was greatly dismayed to learn that the entire book, word for word (except for a some rearranging and a few brief passages), appears in Hiding the Elephant! Unless you're a completist do not buy both Hiding the Elephant and Art & Artifice. Steinmeyer has plagiarized himself quite dramatically, as Hiding the Elephant is really just an expanded version of Art & Artifice.

Hiding the Elephant Revealed

Jim Steinmeyer is one of the finest writers in the field of magic and illusion. Here he traces the development of some of the basic principles of stage magic illusions. Many readers will be surprised at how old some of these principles are! The author embarked on a personal quest to recreate a couple of quirky illusions whose secrets were lost to the magical fraternity, and succeeded at both, going so far as to build one of them and present it at a convention of magical historians. The vivid writing makes the reader feel that he or she has met and conversed with the odd characters that make up the historical cast of the book. Meet Harry Kellar, so determined to discover the secret of a levitation that he rises from his front-row seat during a performance, walks up the steps to the stage past the footlights, and takes a good hard look. Meet Houdini, whose worldwide fame as an escape artist never fulfilled his need to be thought of as a great magician. Meet Maskelyne, the last of an old school, and his sometimes partner Devant Devant, one of the first of a new school. But most of all, discover one of the most startling secrets of magic, as expressed so perfectly by a master of illusion: "magicians guard an empty vault." You'll have to read the book to understand that statement. It will be time well spent.

Not Just Giving Away the Tricks

The magic duo Penn and Teller have a trick called "The Honor System." Instead of putting a curtain around the box from which Teller is to escape, they simply invite onlookers to keep their eyes closed, and open them once he is out. Those who take them up on the deal see Teller locked into a secure wooden box, and after a spell of eyes closed, they see him magically, inexplicably free. Those who peek see just how easily the trick is worked. Penn and Teller know that they can give away the secret of this or other tricks and there is still a show. The gadgets used in the illusions aren't the story, the performance is. Jim Steinmeyer knows this, too. He has designed illusions for magicians and Broadway shows, so he knows all the hardware. In his book _Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear_ (Carroll and Graf), he has given away lots of secrets. But he is not the stupid Masked Magician, revealing tricks for notoriety and fortune. What he has given us is an appreciation of magic history and the refinements in fooling people by clever stagecraft, but he has never forgotten to remind us of the dazzle of the performance.The elephant of the title is one named Jennie, who, at the New York Hippodrome in 1918, vanished from her box on stage, under the direction of none other than Harry Houdini. The hardware he used to make Jenny disappear was surprisingly simple (as are most of the gadgets that make magical effects). It was a product of a boom in the art of conjuring that had started around sixty years before. "It's all done with mirrors" is a dismissive phrase, and yet the history given here of mirror illusions shows that they have been refined in countless ways, from putting ghosts on the stage to producing a talking disembodied head on a table. The ghost craze also manifested in spiritualism, and magicians were keen to cash in on the craze. Among them were the Davenport brothers of Buffalo, who allowed themselves to be bound with ropes inside a cabinet, whereupon in the dark, ghostly hands appeared, instruments were played, and so on. The brothers were tied up before the manifestations, and after, so it seemed as if they could not have been working the tricks. Other magicians could easily see this was a rope escape trick, dressed up in the fancy of the day. But spiritualists only saw the Davenports as demonstrating the truth of communication with the afterlife. The controversy didn't hurt business at all.The stories of these tricks often involve intense competition between magicians. One who invented a trick was likely to see it performed by someone else shortly thereafter. Oddly, patenting a trick is little help; a patent has to have public details of how the mechanism works, and so if he does go to the trouble of patenting an effect, an inventor describes it in unhelpful ways, thwarting the patent process itself. The theft of secrets kept the illusions lively, as other means were found of

An Inside look at Illusion

In an extremely entertaining and insightful new book, Jim Steinmeyer hasexplained the world of the magicians. How they do it, how they entertainaudiences, and how, throughout the years they struggled for their careers,begged, borrowed or stole people, secrets and ideas. Imagine a cross between Longitude and Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women andyou'll have a good idea of Hiding the Elephant. It's a fun, lively andwell-written read, a page-turner organized like a mystery to keep pullingyou from story to story. This book is a combination of history, biographyand science, a tribute to the art of magic. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are the accounts of magicianslike Davenport, Maskelyne or Devent, who changed what magicians did on stageand the way magicians went about deceiving people. The author's "cast ofcharacters" have fantastic stories. Robert Houdin was asked to perform magicfor the French government and stop an uprising in Africa. Magicians Deventand Melies discovered cinema. Houdini became a star by turning to dangerousescapes. Morrit reinvented the way tricks were accomplished. Jarrett decidedto publish a book of all his secrets, explaining his best tricks for a fewdollars. Some of these stories end in triumph, some in tragedy. Manymagicians found that their careers ended when movies became popular. Onefamous magician, at the height of his fame, tragically lost control of handsand ended his life as an invalid. The author points out that the greatest magicians were successful becausethey were partly artists and partly scientists. Some time in the 1800s, theydiscovered a way to make things disappear, or as the author says, "theformula for invisibility," which led to some truly amazing new illusions.Ghosts walked on the stage. People appeared in locked cabinets. HarryHoudini made an elephant vanish on the stage of the Theatre Hippodrome. Along the way there are a number of secrets explained. The author says thatmagicians "guard an empty safe," and that their presentation and artistryare more important than their actual secrets. As a magician, I was familiarwith most of these secrets, but the author has a friendly, interesting,step-by-step way of presenting these scientific principles so that youunderstand the basic secrets and how they could be used on a stage to foolan audience. I know that there's currently a lot of controversy about Hidingthe Elephant, as a magic organization is upset about this book and theauthor's revelations. They feel that too much has been explained in Hidingthe Elephant. But I actually thought that Steinmeyer handled this all verycarefully. Don't worry. Next time you see a magician, you'll still beamazed, and you'll have a new appreciation for what he's doing. Even more important than the secrets, Steinmeyer has explained how audiencesthink about magic, why they're interested in it and why they often welcomebeing deceived. For example, some of the greatest illusions have been tiedto cultural events, fulf