Now in softcover…one of the greatest books on magic history you could own! The Last Greatest Magician in the World is Jim Steinmeyer's biography of Howard Thurston, America's greatest magician of the early 20th century. Expanding on his chapters on Thurston in his history of magic, Hiding the Elephant, Jim produces an engaging full-length biography of the man Orson Welles called "the master." While Houdini's daring stunts were legendary, Steinmeyer says Thurston was the public's favorite, captivating audiences with his "self-assured grandeur." His relationship with Harry Houdini, sometimes a friend and sometimes an enemy, provides an interesting subtext to examine the different styles of magic, and Thurston's tumultuous career. Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Thurston gained fame in the early part of the 20th century with his "Rising Card Trick," in which he levitated cards named by audience members. He successfully changed with the times, going from street performances to wagon tours through the West. He then became a top vaudeville star, but wisely left the vaudeville circuit to produce more ambitious spectacles involving 40 tons of magic apparatus and colorful costumes, a variety of animals, and more than two dozen assistants. Tracing the magician's rise to fame, this volume neatly juggles his marriages and his magic with his triumphs, travails, showmanship, and marketing ballyhoo ("The Wonder Show of the Universe"). Publishers' Weekly wrote: "An engaging biography of the man Orson Welles called 'the master.' Steinmeyer recovers, from the shadows, a figure whose grandiose productions were an American institution for almost 30 years." The Wall Street Journal: "Few historians of magic are as qualified as Jim Steinmeyer. The book vividly conjures up Howard Thurston's troubled life and great illusions.