Mark:

You may have a background in law, but my family has been in the publishing business for three generations. I own varying parts of over 800 copyrighted items, most of which were published through the publishing company my father worked with.

I'm also a member of ASCAP.

Are you a certified Intellectual Property Attorney?

Have you ever had to prosecute or defend an IP case?

Bill,

I wish you would read my posts!

I am sorry you have made all my posts a personal issue!

You are a nice guy and have even helped me out a few times getting some rare books and also information.

I do not want to get into a D''K rubbing contest.

This serves no one.

But as you well know (or should), Major Publishing firms are and have been run much differently that the smaller craft shops that produce such things as our magic books.

The Print runs for our magic books pale (by a great deal, can anyone say Elephant and Gnat?)by comparison to say the last run of "Harry Potter".

Things such as "Pre-First Editions" as they are sometimes referred, are commonplace.

Before things get out of hand, I will end my communication on this subject.

I will in the future avoid those subjects on which the final word seems to have to be yours.

Perhaps YOU may chose to not start threads where you really do not want an answer, or even any input.

Again I am sorry that I dared to think my input would be of any use.

My sincerest apology,

Mark

Mark:

The publishing house that my family is affiliated with is one of the largest music publishing firms in the world. We have offices in Europe, Asia, Australia, Asia and the US. It is not, as you have implied a tiny publisher of magic books. Seven hundred and ninety titles that I own parts of are items that were written my father, sometimes with my help on the research. Others are items that I wrote for the company.

My magic books are a very tiny part of this. I filed my first set of copyright papers about 40 years ago. The music publishing company usually takes care of this for me, because they also bear the costs of printing and distribution. But I can guarantee you that because of the importance of the material to our income, I have kept very close tabs on what goes on in international copyright law.

If you go into any major music store in the US, you will find my full name on the cover of many of these items. If any of your relatives play the piano, chances are, there is one of my books in their piano bench. If not mine, then one of my father's.

Now, who has the broken leg?

If you are suggesting that "the French works" were mythical sources for "The Secret Out", you are very seriously misinformed. All you need do is place a copy of the original (American) edition of TSO next to a copy of "Le Magicien des Salons" to see that they are absolutely identical save, of course, that TSO is in English while Le Magicien des Salon is in French. The most rudimdentary of translations, however, will reveal at once that the texts (and drawings) of both works are identical to each other.

The only question, then, is which came first : was it TSO (in its original American version per Dick & Fitzgerald)or was it the "French works".

One of these French works is "Magicien de Salons". It has an established original publication date that is not later than 1857 (see, e.g. Rulfs, Charles L. : "Origins of Some Conjuring Works", Magicol no.24.1971; see also http://www.illusionta.com). TSO, on the other hand, has an original publication date that is not before 1859.

Clarke & Blind's Bibliography also says that TSO came later and that it is, in fact, "a translation from the French of Richard and Delion's "Le Magiciens des Salons".

Stanyon's bibliography in "Magic" is to much the same, if less specific, effect. Citing Jessel, Stanyon asserts that TSO "is avowedly a translation from a French author" (Magic, March, 1910).

H. Adrian Smith reached the same conclusion, pinpointing Le Magicien Des Salons as the probable source of the TSO (see Books at Brown (1987) vol. XXXIV, 112).

Rulfs sums it up in these terms : "The Secret Out is unblushingly drawn, illustrations and all, from the French Blismon-Richard Delion sources; so much so that when W.H. Cremer later (London, the 1870's) appropriated the whole of Dick & Fitzgerald's efforts, he referred to his "Secret Out" volume as a translation of (on title page, in the preface he owns "partial indebtedness" to "La (sic) Magicien des Salons".

I personally have both the TSO (original American (1859(?) Dick & Fitzgerald edition) and Les Magiciens des Salons in my library. I can tell you that page by page, line by line, illustration by illustration, word for word almost, both books are identical save, of course, that the former is in English and the latter in French. Translated, they are are proven to be absolutely identical. Other members of the Magic Café who have, or have inspected, both books can readily corroborate
the correctness of what I have said.

Having regard to the sources that I have cited, it ought to be clear that whatever debate there may be over who actually wrote TSO (actually, the ultimate credit for the material belongs to Guyot whose C&B chapter in his late 18th century Nouvelles Recreations Physiques et Mathematiques was the source for Les Magiciens des Salons which, in turn, was the work from which TSO was cloned), there can be no rational dissent from the proposition that the content of TSO was copied, yes, copied from "French works", specifically Les Magicien Des Salon by Richard and Delion.

Fortasse.

Just one question. Since the Cremer edition of TSO is not identical to the earlier edition of TSO by Dick and Fitzgerald, especially in terms of material omitted from the Cremer edition, how can you say both are identical to the French work?

I don't read French. I'm asking the question legitimately, seeking information, not to find fault with your statement.

Since you have the American edition of TSO, would you please check on something for me? On page 242 is one of the earliest illustrated versions of the paddle move, done with a dagger. It's called "The Dagger Sleight." I ran across this when I was doing research on the paddle trick. Does this appear in Richard and DeLion with illustrations similar to the ones in TSO?

If so, it will give me another piece of information about my other favorite trick.

"I personally have both the TSO (original American (1859(?) Dick & Fitzgerald edition) and Les Magiciens des Salons in my library. I can tell you that page by page, line by line, illustration by illustration, word for word almost, both books are identical save, of course, that the former is in English and the latter in French. Translated, they are are proven to be absolutely identical. Other members of the Magic Café who have, or have inspected, both books can readily corroborate
the correctness of what I have said".
______________

I omitted to make it clear in the paragraph quoted above (which appeared in my last message) that I was speaking specifically about the respective C&B chapters in TSO and Les Magicien when I said that line for line, illustration for illustration, etc, they are absolutely identical when translated. I think it was clear from the paragraph that followed, when I referred to Guyot and the C&B, that I was indeed speaking specifically about the C&B chapter in TSO and not about the book as a whole. Either way, I'm sorry if any confusion was created.

Having said that, the authorities that I cited seemed prepared to cast a wider net and apply what I said about the C&B chapter to the whole of TSO. I myself cannot vouch for this simply because, C&B-phile that I am, my comparative study and translation have been limited to the C&B chapters in both books.

Bill : In answer to your specific question as to the Dagger Sleight on pages 242 and 243 of TSO, I do not see anything resembling this in Les Magicien but I will look at it again more closely and let you know if In find any treatment of it in the book.

Fortasse

Thanks for the clarification.

In that case, I really must agree with you, at least as far as the two English language texts are concerned. I appreciate your dedication to finding the French text. I recognized some of the illustrations in the cups and balls sections of both English language texts as being very similar to the ones that were in Diderot's Encylcopedia. Now the Diderot encyclopedia was also copied in an early English encyclopedia. If you look at the illustrations of what Joro calls "The Classic Roll Sleight," which are on p. 148 of the Dick and Fitzgerald edition and p. 75 of Cremer, you will see an interesting anomaly. Look at the last hand in each sequence. For whatever reason, Cremer reversed the last illustration. These drawings and the ones that follow on the next page in each book are almost identical to the ones in the Diderot plate, except for the clothing on the wrists of the hands.

Likewise, the ball multiplication vase that shows up later is also taken from Diderot. Diderot was published about 1750 or so. It would be interesting to see what texts went with the plates.

The Dagger Sleight has intrigued me for about a dozen years or more. If you do any paddle work at all, you will find that it fools not only laymen, but magicians. The Dick and Fitzgerald TSO is the earliest place I have seen it. I was surprised when it did not show up in the Cremer version of the book.

If you don't have a copy of the Diderot plate, let me know. I have scanned mine, and I will be happy to send you a high-res jpeg of it.

There's another question then. Who translated the French sources? That would be good to know. The Cremer cups and balls section (as well as some of the card work) seems to be more of a paraphrase of the D&F material than a translation from some other source. Somehow, in some of the places, the D&F material actually reads more British than the Cremer does!

Posted: Mar 20, 2007 5:04pm
BTW,

I, do understand about differing publication dates and copyright dates (especially as to pertains to book of the mid 19th century)but was pro-offering some insight for others reading this thread.

Regards,

M

Posted: Mar 22, 2007 1:53pm
I went back over to Conjuring Arts and did a search on "Magicien des Salons" to see what information I could glean about it. I found the section in Singmaster's Sources v. 1 particularly interesting. If you look at pages 5 and 6, you will see how confusing this can be.

Apparently, a great deal of this checking was done without some of the parties involved actually seeing a copy of the book(s).

H. Adrian Smith got it into his head that H.L. Williams wrote MOB and/or TSO because of the letter he had from Harris Dick. I have already proven, at least to my own satisfaction, that this would be at best unlikely, because H.L. Williams was to young to have written either book. Since this letter is apparently not on file anywhere that will give us access to it, nobody knows exactly what it said, other than Harris Dick overheard his father say that H.L. Williams had written something for him.

So, the question now is which version of "Le Magicien des Salons" was used as the basis for these books.

Was the first book Richard wrote with this title the source? Or was it the one with a supplement by DeLion? Who wrote what? It is definitely puzzling.

So, you keep looking and so will I. I doubt that we will ever find a definitive answer, but at least we keep eliminating suspects.

IMHO, we need to see good, accurate copies of the title pages and copyright pages (if any) of the earlisest editions of these works, along with the pertinent chapters. Primary sources are the only ones that we can really trust.

Bill,
I had asked Bill Kalush several months ago about the possibility of scanning in the French books being discussed here into Alexander. I was hoping to do the exact kind of comparison that you are suggesting. He indicated some willingness to do so, but I imagine other projects have taken precedence, as I haven't seen them in Alexander yet. You might try asking him, though he's already doing some of the Ozanam and Guyot stuff for you, I see.

-Jim

I'm going to relate an almost irrelevant anecdote, then I'll show how it relates to what we have been doing with these books.

My father was a musician. Much of his work was in the form of educational music, but his specialty was baroque music. At the time that he learned to play the piano, there was a set way to interpret ornaments (the little trills, turns, and frills that are sometimes indicated in the music, sometimes implied) that 90% or so of the keyboardists and other musicians adhered to. However, there were books that indicated that the baroque musicians used a slightly different system.

He believed that these older books were correct. One of them was written by J.J. Quantz, a flute player, the other by C.P.E. Bach, son of J.S. Bach. Each of these had tables of ornamentation in them. A table of ornamentation is a decoder of sorts. It shows how the various ornaments are written, with a realization of the same item on a staff below the ornament.

But the more stubborn musicians felt that since Quantz was a flute player and C.P.E. Bach was not a baroque musician, but a classical one, that their arguments were irrelevant at worst, faulty, at best. What my father needed was a table of ornamentation written in J.S. Bach's own hand in order to prove his belief. Sadly, none existed, as far as we could determine.

Then one afternoon while I was going through the Rice University library, I noticed in the recent acquisitions a little book called Clavierbüchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. This was a photographic reproduction of the exercise book that J.S. Bach had written for his youngest son. Every page, even the ones with no notes on them, were reproduced faithfully.

I checked the book out, and brought it home so Dad could take a look at it. When he opened the book and got into the main body, he became very excited.

For in the front of the book, there was the table of ornamentation that J.S. Bach had written for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. This is the only surviving table of ornamentation in J.S. Bach's own hand.

Now, one would think that musicians would immediately say, "Well done! Now we know what to do." No, no, no. Musicians are creatures of habit. Getting them to change their opinions is like reversing tectonic plate movement.

However, this book became the basis of much of what my father wrote and published afterwards. I still have his copy of this book.

He found that all the first editions of Bach's published works were available on microfilm. He also learned that many of the original manuscripts were available on microfilm. He purchased a microfilm reader and ordered every manuscript and published copy that he could get his hands on. He continued to do this with everything he edited and published after that. He preferred to work from original manuscripts, as these were the closest to the primary sources he could find.

He learned that many of the original manuscripts had been altered. He also learned how to distinguish Bach's notation from the notation of others. It's like handwriting analysis.

When he died, part of my job was to bundle this collection and send it to two universities he had been afiliated with. I called them first, to see what the didn't have, because I was permitted in the will to keep the surplus.

So how does this relate to what we have been doing in this thread?

In many cases, we have been referring to sources that are not really accurate or authoritative.

For example, I used to think Toole Stott was authoritative. Nope. Too many errors. In many cases, it's apparent that Toole Stott got his information from the Library of Congress Card Catalog. If there is an error in the catalog, it is also in Toole Stott. One such error is the one that attributes the 1859 edition of TSO to Cremer. That's in the LOC database.

What do we need to do about that one? We need to go back to a source that is authoritative. So, what would that be? It would be a first edition, first printing copy of the Dick and Fitzgerald The Secret Out. If it doesn't list Cremer as the author, then that indicates that the listing in the LOC catalog was an assumption on someone's part -- someone who believed that the relationship between the Cremer book and the Dick and Fitzgerald book is closer than it appears to be.

Then we need to find first editions of as many versions of Le Magicien des Salons as possible. The Rulfs reference is rather sketchy. I'd like to see title pages and texts of these before I make a judgment as to whether they do have that much to do with the Dick and Fitzgerald/Cremer works.

I'm quite sure that there is a lot of cross-pollination here, but I want to actually see something that gives a concrete existence to these earlier French texts and has accurate publication dates. There are just too many "ifs."

If Cremer did any of the translating, for example, why did he make an error in the title of the French book when he mentioned it in the preface of his book? Or did he do that just to cover his behind, or to appear to be a scholar instead of a plagiarist?

My opinion, and it is only that, is that Cremer copied directly from Dick and Fitzgerald, and not from a French text. The translations are too similar to be much else. I say this because translation is not a "plug an English word in for the non-English word" kind of art. There are multiple steps to translating. The first is getting the meaning. The second is expressing that meaning in English. The third is applying a style to it.

For example. A sentence like this - "Als der Knabe die Kugel warf, ging ich in den Raum ein." can be translated several ways and still mean basically the same thing.

When the boy threw the ball, I went into the room.
As the boy was throwing the ball, I went into the room.
While the boy was throwing the ball, I walked into the room.
While the boy threw the ball, I was walking into the room.
I walked into the room while the boy was throwing the ball.

There's a lot of leeway here. Now, let's suppose that I used the third translation, I could "style" it several ways. Here's one example:

Lewis Ganson would write: Whilst the boy was throwing the ball, I went into the room.

So, a translation by two different people on two different continents separated by an ocean would very likely be different in many ways. I think the similarities here show a very direct connection between Cremer and Dick and Fitzgerald.

Just an opinion.

BTW, Fortasse, please do not take this as a criticism of your scholarship. I just think that it is something we need to consider. If our source material is not completely accurate (such as Toole Stott, etc.), then our own research into it cannot be accurate.

The fact that you are using a copy of Le Magicien des Salons to compare these texts is excellent. But when was this edition published? If Rulfs is correct, then how do we know that the earlier edition to which he refers is the same as the other editions we see elsewhere?

There is a lot of confusion about the various books with this title. Some of the editions listed on Google.fr are supposedly first editions of 1876, some other editions are supposedly first editions of other dates.

It is unclear to me when Richard and DeLion became the authors of an edition together. Also unclear is the difference between DeLion's Almanach Manuel du Magicien des Salons and Richard's LE MAGICIEN DES SALONS, ou Le Diable Couleur de Rose.

The publication dates of both of these books are all over the place.

BTW, I don't recall ever stating or implying that I thought this book did not exist.

Bill :

No offence taken. You're quite right to raise these questions. I've been struggling with them too. One of the main problems with Le Magicien Des Salons is establishing its origination-date. My copy, for example, has no date on the title page (nor anywhere else for that matter). Christian Fechner's bibliography, moreover, suggests a date in the 1880's, if I recall correctly, but this seems way too late. What we do have, of course, are the assertions of the very eminent bibliographers referred to in my message of yesterday (Stanyon, Clarke, Smith) that TSO was either cloned from or very closely modelled on the French work. But then again the reliability of some of these bibliographers is quite rightly questioned. Rulfs, for his part, claims that the date for Le Magicien is prior to the supposed date of the original Dick & Fitzgerald edition of TSO (which is usually stated to be 1859 but may, in fact, be 1869 or even later). Rulfs, however, cites no authority for his assertion.

All very mystifying!

But one thing I do know for certain is this : the Cups and balls chapter of Dick & Fitzgerald has not one shred of originality to it because even if it came before Le Magicien, it is in every material particular, except for some of the preliminary observations, taken straight out of Guyot's Recreations Mathematiques which unquestionably dates back to the 18th century....well before the American (Dick & Fitzgerald) edition of TSO could possibly have been published. As far as the C&B treatment is concernerd, then, Dick & Fitzgerald is pure plagiarism : if it wasn't cribbed from Le Magicien, then it was lifted, heart, body and soul, from Guyot. I can't speak for the rest of the book but if the "authors" of the original TSO copied close to 40 pages from one French work, it makes you wonder where the rest of their material came from.

Fortasse.

Exactly!!!!

I've asked the folks at Conjuring Arts to scan the Guyot material and the Ozanam material pertinent to the cups and balls, so I can muddle through it with the help of a French-speaking friend of mine and see what is in there.

Do you want me to send you that scan of Diderot that I mentioned? It's about 5 megs. It should print out nicely.

Yes, I'd love to see the print. Thanks much, Bill.

Incidentally, Bill, you can save yourself a lot of time by simply going to Google Books. You can download the whole of the 1725 edition of Ozanam's book (albeit in French). I'd recommend that at first instance you go straight to the back of the book where you will find an absolutely thrilling ten or so pages of illustrations of all manner of magical apparatus, including two full pages of C&B. These latter pages are particularly interesting because of the cups that are depicted. Both these pages would be great for framing too.

In terms of design, the Ozanam cups remind me a great deal of RNT II's "traditional" cups. Would be interested in your thoughts as to which set of modern cups they most remind you of. In addition to these pictures, the full French text of Ozanam's C&B treatise is included. I have just had this professionally translated and should be able to let you have a copy very soon.

As for Guyot, the 1799 edition of his work is also available in full online(again only in French) on the CNUM website, complete with Guyot's even more extensive (than Ozanam's)chapter on cups and balls which I have just had professionally translated as well. I must tell you that I was absolutely stunned when the translation was completed and I compared it to TSO to discover just how slavishly Guyot was copied by the authors/editors of TSO (unless they copied it from Les Magicien which is another French clone of Guyot's, at least for C&B). This translation should also be ready for distribution very soon.

Fortasse.

Posted: Mar 22, 2007 9:21pm
The Guyot book to which I referred in my last message can be found at http://cnum.cnam.fr/DET/8SAR15.html. Scroll down to Tome (Book) 3, pages 170 - 207 are on the C&B.

I'll be back in a sec. with the info on where to download Ozanam.

Fortasse

If that link doesn't work, try: http://cnum.cnam.fr. Click on the magnifying glass icon. On the next page that pops up, type in "Guyot", and then click on "La rechereche". On the next page that pops up, click on Guyot, Nouvelle Recreations...That will bring up the whole book.

Fortasse

Excellent!!! Many thanks! I have the part of Guyot I need now.

Please PM your e-mail address to me, so I can send you the Diderot illustrations. You will find them pleasantly(!) familiar.

Posted: Mar 22, 2007 10:21pm
I found Ozanam, but I'm having difficulty finding the cups and balls section.

Posted: Mar 22, 2007 10:36pm
The Guyot is quite intriguing. By comparing it to the D&F text, I can see how some of this works. I'm familiar with Italian and Portuguese, so I have some of the roots. I don't know nuttin' 'bout no grammer, though.

Many thanks for posting those links!

Bill :

Many thanks for the Diderot print. Wonderful!

Fortasse

You are most welcome. If I scan the other print, I'll send it to you.

I've been away for a few days, so was very pleasantly suprised to find this thread. I had no idea that both of these texts were available online - thanks Fortasse for posting the links.

Richard

As difficult as it is to figure out who actually assembled the D&F version of TSO and MOB, it is even more difficult to figure out who translated the French text(s) that are likely to be the actual source of the material.

The D&F edition edition of TSO has a routine in it that is crucial to the development of the paddle trick. It is a piece called "The Dagger Sleight." I haven't found it elsewhere.

There is also another possibility that bears consideration. Was there an English language translation of the Guyot or Richard & DeLion material available to the editor of TSO?

Pulling whole chunks of text out of other people's works was not an uncommon practice in the 19th and early 20th century. There are a number of books that are nothing more than parts of the Hoffmann books. In fact, Hoffmann took the cups and balls routine in Modern Magic from the Robert-Houdin routine that he translated and published in one of his Robert-Houdin books.

Posted: Mar 25, 2007 4:06am
Well, I managed to muddle through the Guyot cups and balls section, comparing it to the cups and balls section of the Dick and Fitzgerald The Secret Out. You are absolutely right. The text of the two sections in these two books are basically the same. The interesting thing is that the Dick and Fitzgerald continues with additional material after the French material is finished. I wonder where this came from? This material also shows up in the Cremer edition.

So, there's another piece of the puzzle to work on!

Richard :

You're very welcome.

Fortasse

Posted: Mar 25, 2007 10:42am
Pulling whole chunks of text out of other people's works was not an uncommon practice in the 19th and early 20th century. There are a number of books that are nothing more than parts of the Hoffmann books. In fact, Hoffmann took the cups and balls routine in Modern Magic from the Robert-Houdin routine that he translated and published in one of his Robert-Houdin books.
[/quote]

Another glaring example of this is the "Modern Magician's Handbook" "by" Hilliar (1902). Now this one, at least as far as the Cups and Balls chapter is concerned, is a complete and faithful facsimilie of the C&B chapter in Hoffman's "Modern Magic" - word for word, image for image.

To Hilliar's credit, however, the Publisher's preface to MMH does say that "the author has therefore included the cream of the tricks described by Professor Hoffman in 'Modern Magic" and 'More Magic'...". I think what he really meant to say was that "the author has therefore included the DESCRIPTIONS of the cream of the tricks contained in Hoffman's books!"

Hoffman (Angelo Lewis) did not die until 1919 so I guess it's a fair assumption that Hilliar and/or MMH's publishers had Hoffman's permission to make this "compilation". Indeed a quick look at the rest of the book would suggest that the whole of MMH is, from start to finish, a regurgitation of Hoffman's books.

It proves the point, of course, that "back in the day", concepts and attitudes about intellectual piracy and theft were, as a rule, far more relaxed than they are today.

Fortasse

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. Who was the publisher of Modern Magician's Handbook? If it was McKay or Dutton, that might explain it.

Look at all the permutations that Hocus Pocus Junior went through, including H. Dean and finally Kellar's Modern Wizard's Manual. Not to bash Frank Garcia, but he was notorious for lifting material and calling it his own. He even did that with press clippings.