Image: Gary O'Brien (1993)

"Card magic, and magic in general, owe a far greater debt to Martin Gardner than most conjurors realize"—Steve Minch

Martin's first publication was a magic trick for the Sphinx in May of 1930. He was fifteen years old, and would go on to publish for a further 80 years, in a bewildering breadth of fields. The last publication in his lifetime was a magic trick that he contributed to the May 2010 issue of Word Ways. Happily, both tricks can be found together in this 80 Years of Gardner Magic article by Jerry & Karen Farrell. There is a listing of Martin's primary magic publications at Genii Magicpedia. The extent of his influence in the magic community can be judged by the comments of his peers and disciples.

Martin's magical interests were focussed on table and close-up magic, and from the 1930s on, he published a lot of original magic. He is well known for innovative tapping and spelling effects, with and without cards, and was most proud of his Wink Change. Martin never performed magic professionally, except during a few Christmas seasons in the mid 1930s as a student, when he could be found entertaining shoppers in Marshall Fields's department store in Chicago.

Martin's second published book—though the third he wrote—was Mathematics, Magic and Mystery (Dover, 1956), which is still viewed as a classic almost 60 years later. The Encyclopedia of Impromptu Magic (Magic Inc, 1978), which runs to 574 pages, collects magic effects that Martin published in Hugard's Magic Monthly between Mar 1951 and Apr 1958. The 415-page Martin Gardner Presents (Kaufman and Greenberg, 1993) collects a great deal of Martin's contributions to (quoting from Max Maven's Introduction) "intraprofessional magic journals."

He was listed in the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century" by MAGIC magazine (Jun 1999, p60). In 2005, Martin received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Academy of Magical Arts, the Magic Castle, Hollywood, CA.

Output / Mathematics, Magic and Mystery / Influence / Math Awareness Month (Apr 2014)