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Authors
S.W. Erdnase

S.W. Erdnase

Who

“S.W. Erdnase” is the pen name attached to The Expert at the Card Table, self-published in Chicago in 1902 — the single most influential text in English-language card magic, by an author who has never been conclusively identified. Reversing the name gives E.S. Andrews, and that anagram is the only solid clue left behind.

The first edition was printed at the author’s own expense by the James McKinney printing house; surviving correspondence from McKinney’s bankruptcy proceedings is the closest thing the historical record offers to a paper trail.

The book

The Expert at the Card Table splits into two parts for two different audiences:

  • Card Table Artifice — a manual for the card cheat: false shuffles, false cuts, the bottom deal, the second deal, the cull, the shift, holdouts, and stacking systems.
  • Legerdemain — a shorter section on card magic proper: the Erdnase Color Change, the S.W.E. Shift, the diagonal palm shift, the bottom palm.

The preface’s closing line — “if it sells, it will accomplish the primary motive of the author, as he needs the money” — has shaped every theory about who wrote it: broke, pseudonymous, self-published, and not a man with much left to lose.

Identity theories

No candidate satisfies every constraint (handwriting, geography, vocabulary, technical knowledge, motive):

  • Milton Franklin Andrews — a documented gambler and confidence man, died in a murder-suicide in 1905. Bart Whaley’s The Man Who Was Erdnase (1991) makes the strongest case; the objections are stylistic — his letters don’t read like the book.
  • Wilbur Edgerton Sanders — a mining engineer from a wealthy Montana family. David Alexander built a stylistic/vocabulary case (technical word choice, left-handed perspective in the sleight descriptions); Richard Hatch pursued the documentary trail (Chicago addresses, McKinney timing) without ever placing Sanders in the room with the press. See Memorised stacks for an example of the kind of systems this book’s second half deals in.
  • E.S. Andrews of Illinois — the literal anagram reading.
  • Edwin Sumner Andrews — a railroad employee whose Chicago movements in 1901–1902 line up with the McKinney records, a Hatch theory.
  • The Gallaways and others — including the theory that McKinney’s foreman, Edward Gallaway, ghost-wrote or co-wrote the manuscript.

It’s entirely possible the real Erdnase was someone the historical record has lost.

Why it still matters

Dai Vernon — “the Professor” — hitchhiked from Canada to Wichita on a rumour that a card cheat there could perform the centre deal Erdnase described; the encounter (with Allen Kennedy) shaped Vernon’s life. Ed Marlo wrote thousands of pages extending and arguing with the text. Persi Diaconis, Steve Forte, Jason England, Darwin Ortiz, and most of the twentieth century’s serious card workers measure themselves against this one anonymous volume. The book is public domain — there is no excuse not to own a copy.

Reading list

  • The Expert at the Card Table — S.W. Erdnase (1902). Any modern reprint; the Dover edition is cheap and unabridged.
  • The Annotated Erdnase — Darwin Ortiz (1991). Modern commentary on what each move actually requires.
  • Revelations — Dai Vernon (1984).
  • The Man Who Was Erdnase — Bart Whaley, Martin Gardner, Jeff Busby (1991). The Milton Franklin Andrews case.
  • The Hunt for Erdnase — Marty Demarest, Genii magazine (2011). The W.E. Sanders case, primary-source legwork.