David Devant

David Devant
Cover of Sphinx (September 1908)
Born	David Wighton February 22, 1868 Holloway, London
Died	October 13, 1941 (age 73) Royal Hospital and Home for Incurables, Putney, London
Resting place	Old Highgate Cemetery in North London
Categories	Books by David Devant

David Devant (b.1868–d.1941) born David Wighton in Holloway, London was an English magician, shadowgraphist and film exhibitor. His name is sometimes incorrectly spelt with a trailing 'e'.

Biography

He was a member of the famous Maskelyne & Cook company and performed regularly at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London. In 1905 he became a partner with John Nevil Maskelyne. He was succeeded by Oswald Williams.

Devant introduced the theatrograph into the show, acquiring one of the first projectors ever made out of his own pocket. The theatrograph was invented by Robert Paul.

David Devant was the author of several manuals on conjuring, including Our Magic: The Art in Magic, the Theory of Magic, the Practice of Magic with John Nevil Maskelyne (1911).

Devant lived in Hampstead, London, where a blue plaque commemorating his residence was affixed to the house in 2003.

David Devant was an inventor and performer whose stature as a stage entertainer had himself billed three times for Royal Command Performances. The wit of his patter marked a departure from the pseudo scientific angle taken by many of his earlier predecssors. His humour can still delight by reading the stage lines he includes in the book he wrote with partner John Neville Maskelyne, Our Magic. It is said that Queen Alexandria laughed aloud during Devant's "A Boy, a Hat and Some Eggs" routine at the first of his command performances, where an assistant from the audience was given the (losing) task of keeping track of a bewildering number of eggs plucked from thin air.

The Magic Circle in London has used his name for their magic theater. Even though they kicked David out of Circle twice! Both times for articles from his books were published in magazines of the day which they considered exposure. The more controversial ousting was following publication of his book Secrets of Magic in 1936, when he was in the Putney Home for the Incurables. However he was let back again about a year later when the hierarchy agreed he should be readmitted.

His words about his own priorities in magic have often been quoted to budding young magicians - when confronted by a boastful magician who claimed he knew hundreds of tricks, Devant gently replied that he knew only a few dozen, but he was able to perform them very well.

Among Devant's signature routines was his Magic Kettle, which produced, on demand, any alcoholic beverage called for by the audience, and "The Moth and the Flame", an instantaneous vanish of a winged assistant. Students of magic would perhaps view many of the items in Devant's repertoire as rather elaborated sketches in which the magical element was insufficient to justify the staging.

He was already a top of the bill music hall star when he began sharing the stage with John Neville Maskelyne in 1893. In 1904, the two moved to St George's Hall, and their official business and professional partnership was established soon afterward. It was to prosper for ten years.

Maskelyne and Devant's House of Magic became famous all over the world, and was the showcase for the premier magicians of the day, including Paul Valadon, Charles Bertram and Buatier de Kolta. In My Magic Life, Devant says quite reasonably that their theatre was "the veritable headquarters of the conjurer's art".

"David Devant, most British magicians agree, was the master performer of his time" according to Milbourne Christopher in his standard textbook on conjuring history, Panorama of Magic. He was a fixture in British entertainment, and it was he who was selected to represent "the world of wizardry" at King George V's command performance at the Palace Theatre in London on July 1 1912. The conjuror made headlines not long after when an escaped mental patient cornered him in London and insisted that the magician pull coins from the air as he had been seen to do on stage. Devant did so until attendants arrived from the hospital to take the disturbed spectator away.

Devant was still at the peak of his profession when his health began to fail during the war years, until the consequences of what he identifies it in his autobiography as "paralysis agitans" (a condition now called Parkinson's Disease), forced him to retire in 1920.

Illusions

• Mascot Moth

Quotes

• "Nothing must be left to chance in a magical performance. Everything conducive to enhancing the mystery of the illusions must be arranged with painstaking care and thought." -David Devant, Sachs' Sleight-of-Hand (1877)

Books

• Devant's Hand Shadows (1901)
• Magic Made Easy (1903)
• Woes of a Wizard (1903)
• Tricks for Everyone (1910)
• Our Magic (with John Nevil Maskelyne) (1911)
• Lessons in Conjuring (1922)
• The Best Tricks and How to Do Them (1931)
• My Magic Life (1931)
• Secrets of My Magic (1936)
• Devant's Delightful Delusions, by S. H. Sharpe (1990) ("The fourth in a series of Magical Pro-Files") (originally serialized in The Linking Ring over five years starting in 1978)

See Also

Yellow Perils

References

This page incorporated content from David Devant, a page hosted on Wikipedia. Please consult the history of the original page to see a list of its authors. Therefor, this article is also available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• The Linking Ring, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 1936, "The Diablerie of David Devant," by Henry R. Evans, p. 1
• The Magic Circular, Vol. 36, No. 401, October 1941, "Obituary, David Devant, M.I.M.C.," p. 32
• The Magic Circular, Vol. 36, No. 403, December 1941, "David Devant Memorial Number"
• The Sphinx, Vol. 40, No. 9, November 1941, "David Devant Dies," p. 264
• The Linking Ring, Vol. 22, No. 12, February 1943, "David Devant: The Master as I Knew Him" by Frederick Culpitt, p. 9, "My Memories of Devant" by William Stickland, p. 13 (and others)
• Abracadabra, Vol. 45, No. 1152, February 1968, Centennial Thoughts, "David Devant, Born 22nd February 1868," by A.R.H., p. 115
• The Linking Ring, Vol. 57, No. 6 June 1977, "Memoirs Of A Magician's Ghost," by John Booth, Chapter 120, p. 56
• The Magic Circular, Vol. 85, No. 920, November 1991, "David Devant’s Tomb," by S. H. Sharpe, p. 230
• The New Tops, Vol. 34, No. 12, December 1994, "Men of Magic: David Devant," by Robert E. Olson, p. 28
• The Magic Circular, Vol. 92, No. 987, July 1998, "An Evening with Devant," by Peter Eldin, p. 192
• M-U-M, Vol. 102, No. 3, August 2012, "The Nielsen Gallery, Devant, by Tom Ewing, p. 54
• Bio-bibliographisches Lexikon der Zauberkünstler Edition Volker Huber, April 2002, Wighton, David = David Devant, engl. Zauberkünstler (*22.02.1868 London-Highgate; †13.10.1941 London-Putney), page 369