Early 20th century magic posters

 Images Boing Thurston

 Images Alexander

Over at LIFE, our pal Ben Cosgrove presents a gallery of "Spooky Old Magician Posters" from the early 20th century. The illustration and design of these is, well, magical. It's no wonder that these posters are highly valuable. The art also reminds me that I have a brand new magic history book in my teetering reading queue and it looks terrific: Jim Steinmeyer's "The Last Greatest Magician in the World" tells the tale of Howard Thurston (1869-1936) and his rivalry with Houdini!