Dai Vernon is in some senses one of the greatest magicians who ever lived. That this fact is unknown to virtually all of his countrymen has always struck me as a great and sad shame, and David Ben, with this book, is doing everything he can to redress it.

A fascinating and fast-moving biography….the reader experience a similar thrill, the sense of passing into a realm of secrets….Ben takes care to present the story here to appeal to insiders and laymen alike.

A detailed, humanizing portrait of a genius and the age that hailed him as its conquering hero. Dai Vernon remains the towering figure of 20th-century magic. 

This book is a compelling read and an example of scholarship that will likely survive as the Vernon biography. It surely ranks among the very best of magic biographies and autobiographies given us to enjoy.

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Photos by David Linsell, courtesy of Magicana.