"David Fisher - The War Magician" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher David)

TITLE: The War Magician
AUTHOR: David Fisher
PUBLISHER: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
COPYRIGHT: ©2004
ISBN: 0 297 84635 3
ABEB Version: 3.0
Created: 2006/5/3 @ 22:16


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The War Magician
The man who conjured victory in the desert


David Fisher

This book is dedicated to
Richard Curtis
Bob and Catherine Carlen Forgione
Joyce Heiberger
Paul Heller
Rosemary Rogers
for their support while I wandered in my own desert.

The outbreak of the 1939 war, foretelling inevitable misery to everyone,
meant different things to different people. To me, it involved something
very strange and rather alarming – the focusing of my whole imagination
and knowledge on the problem of how best to mobilize the world of magic
against Hitler.
Jasper Maskelyne



Introduction
During the sixteenth century, it is said, a stocky English farmer named John
Maskelyne served the Cheltenham district as justice of the peace. He was
called one day to preside at the trial of a stranger, a small, twisted black
man who had appeared mysteriously in the district, clad in an unusual black
silk suit. Called by the name Drummer of Tedworth, he stood accused of the
practice of black magic. The evidence given against him was such that John
Maskelyne declared him guilty of witchcraft and banished him to the
American plantations.
Soon thereafter great misfortune befell the Maskelyne farm. Crops
inexplicably failed. Cattle became bloated and died. A barn fire destroyed
the sparse corn harvest. And at night, on the darkest eves, a little black
man was seen limping about the fields.
Suddenly, however, the farm once more blossomed. Crops grew high and