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Lot 6

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Bruce Cervon's First Castle Notebook. Manuscript.

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Cervon, Bruce. Bruce Cervon's First Castle Notebook. [Hollywood, 1964 - 1965]. 60 4to sheets of handwritten notes on how to perform close-up magic tricks written by Bruce Cervon and Larry Jennings, and compiled during their time at The Magic Castle with Dai Vernon. The first four pages of notes are in Larry Jennings' hand, copied directly from Cervon's own notebooks; the balance are in an unknown cursive script and also duplicate Cervon's notes. These notes outline the working of numerous tricks (Vernon Foolers," among them), and are occasionally accompanied by crude hand-drawn diagrams explaining effects and sleights. The handwritten notebook includes, in Cervon's block-capital hand lettering, a bibliography of published and unpublished tricks devised by Dai Vernon. This notebook is accompanied by three others, each made up of carbon copies of other Cervon Castle Notebooks. The group was given to Larry Jennings by Bruce Cervon. Notes are written and printed on three-hole punched sheets and gathered together in four green three-ring fiberboard binders.

Larry Jennings moved to California in 1963 and in doing so, became the first devout follower of Dai Vernon to move west to study with The Professor. Bruce Cervon followed Jennings to California, at Jennings' urging (see Lot #160). Jennings was an accomplished sleight-of-hand magician as was Cervon, but Cervon was better educated and more organized than Jennings. So, the two men struck a deal: Jennings would introduce Cervon to Vernon and broker a friendship between the men; Cervon would become the scribe, recording the tricks, sleights and ideas developed between the three men in the course of their frequent "sessions" at the Magic Castle. In trade for making the introduction to Vernon, Jennings would then be entitled to copies of Cervon's notes.

As Cervon and Jennings grew apart, their agreement regarding the Castle Notebooks dissolved. Cervon continued to keep detailed notes, but no longer shared them with Jennings. The four notebooks offered here represent a rare moment in the history and development of sleight-of-hand in America, the focal point of which was, arguably, Dai Vernon and his acolytes – Bruce Cervon and Larry Jennings.

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