My name is Mark Lewis. This is the book that changed my life. In fact I suspect it changed the life of a lot of other card magicians too. The Royal Road to Card Magic was first published in 1949 and 70 years later it is still considered the standard work in card magic. A terrific study plan which if you follow carefully (as I did) you cannot possibly fail to achieve proficiency as a card magician. You can start the book knowing nothing about card tricks but by the time you get to the end you will become an expert. Of course a lot of things have happened in card magic over the last 70 years since the book was first published so I decided to add some of my own ideas, variations and improvements to the material which I have performed for decades. I must have done something right since legendary card magician and memory expert Harry Lorayne wrote this after reading my manuscript:
"It has been a long time since I couldn't sleep when I'd just acquired a new magic book - had to finish reading it before I turned off the bedside lamp and closed my eyes! This book did it!
I don't know what price Mark will put on this book, but whatever that price I assure you that it will be worth much, much, more for you than that amount! (Aside from learning some terrific new ideas it brought back wonderful memories for me. I knew Jean Hugard and Fred Braue personally. I know that they'd be very pleased with what he's accomplished here.)
What a job he's done! His annotations, updates, wonderfully clear and explicit photos, new ideas, and more, make this an absolute must-have.
I don't want to get specific - mentioning the many items that I found to be so great. It's better for you to come across all of them as you read, decide for yourself."
Frailich, Ariel: - About Ariel He was bitten by the bug at age 10, with a book on card tricks by The Great Merlini (Clayton Rawson). He soon discovered Klingsor's Magic Shop in Brussels, Belgium, where he lived at the time. He learned a lot and met many magicians there. He saw "modern" card magic for the first time when Frank Garcia did a European lecture tour; it was a revelation. He gave up all other forms of magic to concentrate on cards and close-up. He returned to Canada (where he was born), learned a lot from a few good people, and became fairly well-known on the local magic scene.
Lewis, Mark: - Mark Lewis is a Scottish magician, psychic, hypnotist, palmist, tarot card reader and Svengali pitchman who worked in the U.K., Holland, Ireland, and the United States before emigrating to Toronto, Canada. He is particularly well known for his showmanship where card tricks are concerned. He is best known for his handling of the Svengali Deck, a trick deck of cards he has sold internationally. While working in Ireland he wrote astrology columns for Irish newspapers. On moving to Canada he became very active in performing magic at trade shows where he used his background as an exhibition pitchman to gather crowds and promote company messages as a trade show magician. He is considered to be one of the leading trade show performers in Canada. He is considered to be one of the most entertaining card magicians in the world.
Lorayne, Harry: - Harry Lorayne (born 4 May 1926) is an American magician and a memory-training specialist and writer who was called "The Yoda of Memory Training" and "The World's Foremost Memory-Training Specialist" by Time magazine. He is well known for his incredible memory demonstrations and has appeared on numerous television shows including 24 times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. His book The Memory Book was a New York Times bestseller. His card magic, especially his innovations in card sleights, is widely emulated by amateur and professional magicians.
