Famous magicians
37 magicians who shaped the art, from the first name in an Egyptian papyrus to the performers of today, in order of when they were born. What they did on stage, never how they did it.
Famous female magicians on this list: Adelaide Herrmann, Mercedes Talma, Dell O'Dell.
Before the stage
Court conjurors, fairground performers and the first magicians whose names survive.
Dedi
Ancient Egypt · Egypt
The earliest named magician in any surviving text. The Westcar Papyrus, written in Egypt more than 3,500 years ago, tells of Dedi performing for King Khufu. It is a story, not a record, but it shows wonder-working as entertainment was already old.
Isaac Fawkes
c. 1675–1731 · England
A London showman who worked the fairs, including Bartholomew Fair, and advertised widely. One of the first conjurors known to have grown rich from performing.
Giuseppe Pinetti
18th century · Italy
Italian conjuror who played the courts and theatres of Europe in the 1780s and presented magic as elegant scientific entertainment rather than fairground trickery.
The golden age
Roughly 1840 to 1940: theatres, touring shows and the performers who made magic a profession.
Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin
1805–1871 · France
A French clockmaker who opened his own theatre in Paris in 1845, performed in evening dress instead of a wizard's robe, and is widely called the father of modern conjuring. Houdini took his stage name from him.
Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser
1806–1875 · Austria
A Viennese civil servant who performed in intimate salons and is often called the father of card magic. Many card plots still performed trace back to his work.
John Henry Anderson
1814–1874 · Scotland
Billed as the Great Wizard of the North, a tireless self-promoter who toured Britain, America and Australia. He is often credited with popularising the rabbit from a hat.
John Nevil Maskelyne
1839–1917 · England
With George Cooke he ran magic shows at the Egyptian Hall in London from 1873, which became known as England's home of mystery. Also an inventor, usually credited with the coin-operated lock for public toilets.
Alexander Herrmann
1844–1896 · France / United States
Herrmann the Great, the image of the stage magician for a generation: goatee, waxed moustache and a large touring show across America.
Harry Kellar
1849–1922 · United States
The dean of American magicians. After decades touring the world he became the leading stage magician in the United States, famous for the levitation of Princess Karnac, and in 1908 handed his show to Howard Thurston.
Adelaide Herrmann
1853–1932 · England / United States
The Queen of Magic. After her husband Alexander died in 1896 she kept the show running under her own name for more than twenty-five years, including the bullet catch, which few performers of either sex dared.
Chung Ling Soo
1861–1918 · United States
The stage name of the American magician William Ellsworth Robinson, who performed as a Chinese conjuror and died after being shot during his bullet-catch illusion at the Wood Green Empire in London in 1918.
T. Nelson Downs
1867–1938 · United States
The King of Koins, a vaudeville star whose whole act was coin manipulation. His Modern Coin Manipulation (1900) was the first major book on the subject.
David Devant
1868–1941 · England
Admired for charm and storytelling more than spectacle, he became Maskelyne's partner and was the first president of The Magic Circle, founded in London in 1905.
Mercedes Talma
1868–1944 · England
Billed as the Queen of Coins, a coin manipulator of real skill who toured with her husband Servais Le Roy in the act Le Roy, Talma and Bosco.
Howard Thurston
1869–1936 · United States
American magician who began as a card specialist and, after taking over Harry Kellar's show in 1908, ran the largest touring magic show in the United States until his death in 1936.
Horace Goldin
1873–1939 · United States
Known for a fast, almost silent act, he presented an American version of sawing a woman in half in 1921, soon after P. T. Selbit's in London, and later patented it.
Max Malini
c. 1873–1942 · United States
A small man with large hands and nerve to match, who performed close-up magic for presidents, kings and the very rich, often with borrowed objects. Many of the stories about him are probably polished, which suits him.
Harry Houdini
1874–1926 · Hungary / United States
The most famous escape artist who ever lived. Born in Budapest and raised in America, he escaped from handcuffs, jails, a milk can and a water-filled cell on stage, and spent his last years exposing fraudulent spirit mediums.
Okito
1875–1963 · Netherlands
The stage name of Theo Bamberg, from a long Dutch family of magicians, who performed in an elegant Asian-styled act. Several classic props carry his name, including the Okito coin box.
P. T. Selbit
1881–1938 · England
Usually credited with the first public performance of sawing through a woman, in London in January 1921. A prolific inventor of illusions.
Harry Blackstone Sr.
1885–1965 · United States
The Great Blackstone, a big touring showman of the mid-century, remembered for the floating light bulb and the dancing handkerchief.
Dell O'Dell
1897–1962 · United States
A vaudeville and nightclub performer, billed as the Queen of Magic, who later had her own television show in the 1950s.
Jasper Maskelyne
1902–1973 · England
Grandson of John Nevil Maskelyne. He served in British army camouflage during the Second World War; how much of the wartime deception later credited to him was really his is disputed by historians.
Television and after
The magicians of the screen, Las Vegas and the close-up table.
Dai Vernon
1894–1992 · Canada
Canadian-born sleight-of-hand artist known as the Professor, who famously fooled Houdini and shaped modern close-up magic, including the card trick Triumph and an influential cups and balls routine.
Tommy Cooper
1921–1984 · Wales / England
The fez-wearing British comedian whose tricks went wrong on purpose. Behind the act was a skilled magician and a member of The Magic Circle. He collapsed on stage during a live television broadcast in 1984 and died.
Mark Wilson
1929–2016 · United States
A pioneer of magic on American television with The Magic Land of Allakazam, and author of Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic, which taught a generation.
Siegfried & Roy
1939–2021 and 1944–2020 · Germany / United States
Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, whose Las Vegas show with white tigers and lions ran for decades until Horn was badly injured by a tiger on stage in 2003.
Juan Tamariz
born 1942 · Spain
Spanish card magician and theorist, hugely influential among magicians for his comic style and his writing on how audiences think.
Ricky Jay
1946–2018 · United States
Sleight-of-hand artist, actor, and scholar of magic history and unusual entertainers. He could throw a playing card hard enough to pierce a watermelon rind.
Doug Henning
1947–2000 · Canada
Long hair, rainbow clothes and a sense of wonder. His Broadway hit The Magic Show (1974) and his television specials brought big illusion back to popular attention.
Penn & Teller
together since 1975 · United States
The loud one and the silent one. A long-running Las Vegas act known for playing with how magic is presented, and hosts of Fool Us, where magicians try to fool them.
David Copperfield
born 1956 · United States
The defining television illusionist of the 1980s and 1990s, who made the Statue of Liberty appear to vanish on live TV in 1983, and one of the most commercially successful entertainers of any kind.
Lance Burton
born 1960 · United States
Elegant stage magician famous for his doves, who headlined his own theatre at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas for well over a decade.
Derren Brown
born 1971 · England
British mentalist and illusionist whose television specials and stage shows made psychological illusion mainstream. He is open that he has no supernatural powers.
David Blaine
born 1973 · United States
His 1997 special Street Magic made close-up magic performed for strangers a television genre. Later known for endurance stunts.
Dynamo
born 1982 · England
Steven Frayne, whose series Dynamo: Magician Impossible brought street magic to a new British audience.
Shin Lim
born 1991 · Canada / United States
Card magician known for slow, music-led close-up acts, who won America's Got Talent in 2018.