Steve Pellegrino, on his blog Magic Rants, posted a note about Richard Stokes’s website about Jasper Maskelyne.

As you probably already know from reading this blog, I am a fan of the history of magic. And Steve’s post called to mind a note I sent back in November of last year in to a Yahoo! Groups discussion group dedicated to magicians doing mentalism. If you have an interest in Maskelyne and checked out the site, you may be interested in this little bit of back story, which I wrote in response to mention of the question, “Haven’t there been counter claims that Maskelyne’s part in the war effort has been more than somewhat exaggerated over the years?”

John LeBlanc writes:
That’s been suggested. When one learns of the material David Fisher used in writing the book, “The War Magician” the picture gets much clearer. It certainly makes for good fiction and, naturally, a great screenplay. The truth, apparently, is far more tame.

Back in 2001, on hearing the news that Tom Cruise was tapped to play the part of Jasper Maskelyne in an upcoming movie based on the book, Angela (Jasper’s grand-daughter) was none too amused. She called Richard Stokes and discussed the matter.

A few years earlier, Stokes wrote a series of articles, as Richard put it, “disembowelling David Fisher’s hyped-up account of Jasper’s so-called war career.”

In the introdution to the series, Stokes wrote:

“Many of the claims made by David Fisher…need to be drastically revised. The magical duel with the Imam; the dramatic search for an enemy radio transmitter hidden in King Farouk’s palace; the construction of a decoy site to protect Alexandria from aerial attack; the ‘vanishing’ of the Suez canal; the perilous ‘lost in the desert’ episode ­ these crucial ingredients of the Maskelyne myth will be subjected to critical bombardment.

“Even the effectiveness of the famous deception plan for El Alamein will be questioned.

“An interesting pattern will gradually emerge: Fisher while inflating Maskelyne’s contribution, minimises or overlooks the contribution of others.”

In 2001, when the movie story broke, Richard sent to me copies of his revised articles, all incredibly well cross-referenced in footnotes. It seemed to me then — as it does now — that a story about the story would be nearly as interesting reading.

Richard created a web site that, among other things, includes these revised articles (probably further revised from four years ago.) I think you may it interesting reading: http://www.maskelynemagic.com/

There’s no question that Jasper Maskelyne is an interesting and important part of the history of magic. In my opinion, Stokes’s work only makes it more so.