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The pattern of Pinetti was to continue with many contemporary performers among them Philippe and then Anderson. The Great Wizard of the North, but paradoxically the complete breakaway was to come from a Viennese civil servant, Joseph Nepomuk Horzinser. Here was a man certainly a century ahead of his time, introducing his many originations and his new style of magic which was to be exemplified so many years later by the truly great magicians of our times.
Most fortunately much of his magic has been preserved in written form through the efforts of Ottakar Fischer, and two of his books, Kartenkuenste and Zauberkuenste, bring to light conjuring that is just as much twentieth century as it was nineteenth.
Fortunately for those unable to read the German language, we owe a debt to Mr. S. H. Sharpe for his translation of Kartenkuenste, and the book will soon be published in Canada translated by John Gilliland.
In the field of card magic, many feats offered by magicians of today, bear the imprint of Hofzinser.
In Europe apart from Hofzinser, it didn't progress until almost the middle of the century and the days of mechanical conjuring but a certain change was to come. In France, a young man, a watchmaker of twenty years had studied, experimented, invented and perfected a number of conjuring tricks that he felt certain could raise the status of the conjurer. So sure he was that in 1845 he rented a suitable room in the Galerie de Valois in the Palais Royal and this was converted into a suitable theatre for his performances. The name of this conjurer who can without fear of contradiction be called "The Father of Modern Magic", was Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. While the first performance was hardly a success as is the case with so many first performances, those which followed soon established his supremacy and he was to continue and active life performing all over Europe for a decade. Unique indeed is the fact that, because of trouble with the natives of Algeria in 1856, the French government persuaded Robert-Houdin to show that his powers of magic were greater than those of the native magicians, and with such feats as the Bullet Catching and an illusion of that time called "The Light and Heavy Chest" he succeeded.
His name will never be forgotten for in his book Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie, though now more than a hundred years old, the stature of his magic is written there for all times.
The half-century mark had come and gone, many of Robert-Houdin's presentations having been copied by other contemporary European conjurers, chief among them Anderson.
A decade was to pass before there was any noticeable change but one came suddenly making the efforts of the conjurers of the 1850s completely outdated.
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