October 16, 1935
Mr Annemann, Waverly, New York
Assuming that by chance you might be speaking the truth when you said you
would print my reply to your unwarranted, unprovoked and unprincipled attack
on Stage Magic and myself, I am sending you my reply. Of course, you may as well
for I shall print 3000 copies to go out with our fall mailing anyway.

As practically everyone in Magic knows, I am just now recovering from a two
months illness, had been ordered away by doctors for that period and recuperated
at Bayville, on the northshore of Long Island. All dealers were notified, Holden,
Ducrot, Bergin, The Sphinx office (all of which you frequent) and even Thayer,
Davenport of England, etc. As you, self appointed magic news columnist must have
also known of it. I can only assume that you took this opportunity for attacking a
man you know to be ill with the sole idea of injuring the publication of a brother
magician. A true fraternal spirit.

As definitely stated in advertisements, Stage Magic is not a monthly magazine
nor news periodical. It is a Magic Book, issued in parts, each part or section being
trimmed and punched for loose leaf binding, to be added to proceeding parts, thus
forming a continuous and constantly growing text book of Magical Effects. Each
subscriber subscribes for so many parts (as stated in brackets in his subscription
form) and he will receive just that many parts or sections. Yes, this despite the
fact that I have enlarged the parts of approximately twice or double the size
originally promised to subscribers, and that they are getting double the value
originally implied or indicated by the first or sample issue ‘Part 1’.

Yes, it is true that if you had subscribed at the original subscription price of
$5.00 you would have today something which has doubled in value, and enlarged
to twice the size is now selling at $10.00. The subscribers purchased an article
which a short time after was selling at double the price and was giving twice the
dividends in contents, volume, and value, AND THEY KNOW IT.

For 25 years I have been writing and publishing Magical books for magicians,
now totalling nearly 40 volumes, which books I am glad to say have won the
appreciation of thousands of magicians and are sold by all the leading magical
concerns and dealers of importance from here to England, Germany and
Australia. I have over twelve hundred signed Testimonials ranging from some
of the smallest members of our profession to prominent persons like Thurston,
Horace Golden, and like celebrities.

All magic knows that I will fulfill my obligations as in the past with the best book
that I can possibly produce and with about double the quality and volume which I
originally advertised, just as I did with Expert Manipulation and numerous other
books which have appeared with about DOUBLE the content and DOUBLE the
illustrations promised.

Really worthwhile books often take a little longer (especially if enlarged to double
size) than originally planned, as witness J. N. Hilliard’s Art of Magic, which
appeared about two years after the subscription date, also some of Goldstone’s
books, Max Holden’s Coin Magic which was three months past its advertised dates
and even your Book Without a Name, which after various delays might never have
appeared at all, for you deserted it. If it had not been for one of the magical dealers
who had accepted a lot of orders, being approached by the printer and agreeing to
finance it providing you released all claims on the first printing, your book might
not even have appeared by now !

That is my answer. Let us see if you will publish it.

Waverly, New York
October 17, 1935
Dear Burling;
Your special delivery and 3 cent due letter of October 16th has come to hand. I cannot
take the responsibility of copying it so am reproducing it exactly as received, especially
so after your unwarranted, unprovoked and unprincipled inference (lines 1, 2 and 48)
that I would not do as promised.
I’m very sorry to hear of your ill health, and that bit of information, coming to me now,
makes me a ‘bust’ as a columnist.
Knowing you had moved into new quarters with an enlarged shop since June, I assumed
you were as active as always. If your staff attended to this and your business during
your illness, I might suggest a replacement for the sake of good will. A letter at hand
says an order in May was filled the latter part of August.
Your remarks anent Stage Magic being a book, rather than a monthly periodical do not
coincide with the first number which states “issued in MONTHLY PARTS”, (caps are
yours) and also “arrives Every Month (except July and August)”. I appreciate the fact
that your policy has changed, although you have adhered to the “except July & August”
part.
Allowing that your illness has prevented publication for at least three months, the fact
still remains that in over eight months only three parts appeared. Issue No. 3 stated
very plainly “Our agreement with our subscribers was a yearly not a monthly issue and
to provide ten sections per year not one per month.”
No one disputes your claim to 25 years in the magical writing and publishing field. This
is, in fact, your 28th year, dating from the time of your first Sphinx ad. No one denies
your ability and versatility when it comes to magical publications. In The Jinx Five
Foot Shelf of Magic, I could do no less than include three of your publications, more
than by any other person. I have never, however, been able to understand your theory
of advertising, as for instance, when you wrote a note from Canada for me to break
Sphinx ads over my name because Wilson wouldn’t accept them coming from you.
And again, with The Sphinx under its present management, why you had me compile
and write tricks for the Climax Card Routine only to advertise it as being authored
by a Mr Drummond, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting. Certainly, with
thousands of magicians comprising the ‘Burling Hull Family’ (Stage Magic No.1) you
would have had countless more sales had they known it was written by you (?) rather
than by a comparatively unknown author. If I wrote a book and advertised it as by
‘Muffus the Mystic’, I wouldn’t expect half the sales than if under my own name which
I have laboriously tried to build up, as you have yours. Watching you prosper makes me
wonder at times, whether or not my methods are right.
I know that delays in publishing magical tomes are not rare, but I think you have hung
up another record with your seven year space between the first ads of Stage Magic
and its appearance. Your reference to The Book Without a Name is ignorantly libelous,
Burling, but I’ll forget it if you promise to talk to both the printer and publisher before
writing it again. That statement makes us both ‘busts’.
And if you do print 3000 copies of your reply, to go out with the fall mailing, I presume
you will include my first letter to which the reply was made. However, realizing that
you wrote it as an ad, I consider it extremely improbable that either of my letters will
appear beside it.
I am glad to know you will fulfill your obligations as soon as health permits. The world of
magic awaits your speedy recovery.
Respectfully,

P.S. I’ll write again next year.