Saving Magic: David Price and the Making of Egyptian Hall

Debuting Magic Collector Expo in Las Vegas on May 5 and now available for pre-order! Books ship following the convention.

This book tells stories of vaudeville spotlights, treasure-seeking adventure, and roads less taken.

David Price desperately wanted to succeed as a magician. He had the manual skill, but war injuries kept him behind a desk, not the footlights. Yet his passion for magic and its history vaulted him to fame as one of the foremost collectors of the twentieth century. 

Absorbing multiple accumulations of posters and other memorabilia, he created a vast, world-famous, and never-to-be-duplicated archive known as the Egyptian Hall Museum.

Paul McWilliams went where Price could not, as a vaudeville trouper, comedy stage magician, and Ripley's Odditorium star, entertaining the masses of America. He was also David Price's best friend. 

Based on a ten-year friendship with Price and lengthy interviews with his son, author Michael Claxton recounts the stories and sidelights of a diverted dream turned heroic effort to preserve magic history.

Price and McWilliams fought to save the secrets of conjuring from the threat of public exposure. When that failed, David turned his attention to saving the art in another way, by curating and chronicling the treasures of its past.

Saving Magic tells their stories side by side, giving readers a backstage view of lives lived in parallel. This is a tale populated by an eccentric cast of magicians, collectors, and even politicians, who all played a part in the making of Egyptian Hall. 

260 full-color pages • 6 x 9" • Hardbound • Over 100 illustrations • Introduction by Mike Caveney 

Limited edition of 250 • Available exclusively from Squash Publishing