Charles Jordan

Charles Thorton Jordan (October 1, 1888 - April 24, 1944) was born in Berkeley, California.

Charles Jordan
Born	Charles Thorton Jordan October 01, 1888 Berkeley, USA
Died	April 24, 1944 (age 55)
Categories	Books by Charles Jordan

Jordan met Bob Madison (mayor of Santa Rosa, California) in 1908 who gave him his first lessons in sleight of hand at the age of 19. Later, Jordan began to work out his own and soon began publishing and selling the tricks and pamphlets which made him famous. Family members said he was inventing an average of ten tricks per week.

In 1919 he published a book on card magic entitled Thirty Card Mysteries. In it he described a new sleight which became known as the Jordan Count, a method of false counting of four cards for secretly altered their order.

In 1920 he published 5 booklets with over 50 card effects of his own invention. He continued publishing until 1923 when he lost his interest in magic and turned his studies to radio and soon began to manufacture sets.

Charles Jordan never performed in public and his fame was based mainly on his publications. In 1935 he was contacted by Theodore Annemann who wanted to publish a collection of his work. However, the series was abandoned shortly after. Lloyd Jones also tried to contact Jordan to express his desire to publish Jordan's works in book form, but Jordan passed away before he could find him.

Jordan died in Petaluma, California after many years of illness. Interment was in Cypress Hill Cemetery in Petaluma on April 26th.

Many of Jordan’s effects were collected and published by Karl Fulves in The Collected Works of Charles Jordan.

Books

• Thirty Card Mysteries (1919)
• Ten New Impromptu Card Tricks (1920)
• Ten New Prepared Card Tricks (1920)
• Ten New Sleight of Hand Card Tricks (1920)
• Ten New Miscellaneous Tricks (1920)
• Ten New Pocket Tricks (1920)

References

This page incorporated content from Charles Jordan, 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

• Jordan Search Leads to Grave, Bat no. 9, 1944, Jordan Memorial Issue, page 45.