Incredible Hofzinser Deal-Act Now!

I just found out about this and sadly, you've only got a few hours to act before the sale is over. Hocus Pocus, the online magic dealer is having a 24 hour sale, which ends tomorrow at noon on the two incredible Hofzinser Books by Magic Christian.

These normally retail for $299.95, but during their 24 hour sale, which ends noon July 10th, you can grab these two books for $149.95. That is 50% off and these books are fantastic.

Volume 1 is Non Plus Ultra -Magic of the 19th Century
Volume 2 is Non Plus Ultra- Hofzinser's Card Artistry

If you're interested, go here to read the review I wrote of these books back in Feb of 2014. http://www.themagicdetective.com/2014/02/the-ultimate-hofzinser-books-review.html

If you don't  have these books, you should jump on the chance to get these 2 volumes at half price!

Harry Cooke's Grave

I've been doing some research on Horatio Cooke recently. He has quite the life story which I covered briefly in an earlier blog article. I was rereading the magazine article that Mark Cannon wrote for the MUM back in April 2006. The article was incredible and it ended with Mark discussing the difficulty he had trying to locate the grave of Harry Cooke. He eventually discovered it with the help of magic historian, Diego Domingo. There is a great photo in the magazine of Mark kneeling in front of the grave.

I realized that I never included Harry Cooke in my The DeadConjurers blog. So I went online and found another photo in Find-A-Grave.com. The photo owner Don Lynch kindly gave me permission to use the photo that he took of the grave. Thanks Don!

But I also found something else of interest. I found the photo of a grave belonging to 'The Infants of HG Cooke and LM Cooke' in Illinois. I'm 99% sure this grave belongs to two children of Harry and Louisa. They lived in Illinois before moving out west to California. It's likely these two children died in childbirth.

Harry Cooke and his wife are buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, the same cemetery where Harry Kellar is buried. Incidentally, they were good friends.

Photo used with permission of Don Lynch

In Search of Maro, Prince of Magic

I'm currently working on a special project about The Great Maro. His real name was Walter Truman Best and he was a popular Chataqua and Lyceum performer. He died in 1908 at the young age of 39. But before he died he made connections with a number of interesting characters from the world of magic. These include A.M. Wilson, Silent Mora, Eugene Laurant, J. Elder Blackledge, Karl Germain and Harry Kellar.

His life story is fascinating. Digging up information on him has been exciting, thrilling, difficult at times, and yet really enjoyable. I'm attempting to put together a recreation of part of his act. A previous article I wrote about The Flags of All Nations was actually part of the act I'm working on. And just today I got the inside work to his Meteoric Ribbon Routine.

I'm wondering if anyone out there has information on Maro, or even props and such you'd be willing to share for my project. I'd like to have a powerpoint presentation and if I could have photos of his actual props, that would be so incredible. Anyone with any Maro knowledge, please contact me!
carnegiemagic@me.com

Once the project is complete, I'll post an article about the life of Maro here, and I'll probably begin another season of The Magic Detective Youtube Show with a longer episode about Maro.