John Booth 1912-2009

Magician and author John Booth wrote Memoirs of a Magician’s Ghost a magic history column that ran in the Linking Ring from 1963 though 2000

Dai Vernon

Known to magicians as The Professor Dai Vernon is considered to be the greatest close-up magician in the history of modern magic. He is often referred to as the ‘The man who fooled Houdini’ after besting Houdini with an ambitious card routine.

Dai Vernon spent thirty years as the magician in residence at the Magic Castle where he mentored people like Ricky Jay, Doug Henning and Michael Ammar.

The first book on magic the Vernon owned was a copy of The Expert at the Card Table.

Martin Gardner 1914-2010

Prolific author who wrote mainly on mathematics and was sometimes referred to as the “mathemagician” A number of his math & magic books are available through Dover. Also the author of The Annotated Alice, a wonderfully annotated version of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.