Hello Café denizens:

I'm working on a long article about the contemporary magic scene (I'm an amateur magician but professional writer) and I'm having trouble tracking down a good general history of magic during the last 30 years. I've read and enjoyed Milbourne Christopher, Jim Steinmeyer (including his Alan Wakeling book), and a smattering of magical biographies (including David Blaine's) but there seems to be very little out there about Henning, Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy, Penn and Teller, and other recent and current magicians.

Any suggestions? I'm a writer, not a collector, so it'd be great if any thoughts are of books that aren't too obscure or expensive. I'm also particularly interested in writing that's smart, analytical, and isn't an exercise in hagiography.

A related question: for issues involving magicians on the national scene, which is the best magazine to pick up? I've flipped through Genii and Linking Ring, but don't know what's the Conjuring equivalent to Variety or Backstage.

Thanks in advance!

If you can get hold of it, the World’s Greatest Magic by Hyla Clark it bio’s of Henning, Siegfried and Roy, Copperfield, and a host of others that were popular in the seventies. The book is dated, so you have to use that as a starting point.

Siegfried and Roy have an autobiography they wrote about a decade ago. You would have to do some google searches to update the information. Also, you are getting a biased opinion on the subject because it’s ghost written by them.

The fans of Henning have a website. Copperfield is hard to find info on because he is not very forthcoming on his past. He tells a few things, but he doesn’t tell you his real name and so forth. Wikipedia.com is a good source to help fill in the blanks.

If you want to know anything about more, I can help. Just write to me and I’ll see what I can do.

I think you will probably have to do most of the original research yourself, by searching periodicals etc. There are probably not very many secondary sources for the period you are talking about, so your article will likely be one of the sources others will look to later.
Back before the web, the public library was the place to look for references, starting with the "Readers Guide to Periodical Literature", "Who's Who", and the other traditional research tools.
These are available online, of course, but you will have to pay for access. They're free at the Library.

You might want to find a copy of David Price's Magic.