Presto Prestige by Morris N. Young

Reviewed by Jamy Ian Swiss (originally published in Genii March, 2005)

The name of historian, author, and collector Morris Young will be known to those who are aware of the astounding McManus-Young collection which now resides in the rare book collection of the Library of Congress, overseen by its articulate and committed curator, Dr. Joan Higbee. In 1928 Dr. Young wrote and privately circulated this manuscript, subdued "A Magical Miscellanea." The first section, "Learning to Present," includes brief discussions of psychology, practice, and the audience. Further segments in the monograph consider stage lighting, card flourishes, spiritualistic phenomena, and a few other assorted entries. This limited (to 250 copies) edition reprint, produced with a minimum of production values by the venerable firm of Flosso-Hornmann, is chiefly of interest in the fact that it must have been something of an oddity when it was originally conceived some three-quarters of a century ago, with it's intellectual musings on subjects that in some cases had yet to have been discussed in depth in the literature of conjuring. This eccentric footnote will doubtless be of particular interest to historians and academics of conjuring.

"Just as quackery has grown up to be associated with the medical world as an undesirable factor to be contended with, so has spiritualism become attached to the profession of conjuring." — Morris Young Presto Prestige