Description

The Sleepy Hollow Book Test

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, written while he was living abroad in Birmingham, England. First published in 1819, it’s one of the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.

The gaff has been cleverly woven into each page incorporating James L. Clark’s opposing and associative word pair concept that he developed in 2006, which is a significant advancement over Larry Becker’s traditional Flash Back method. Additionally, the positioning improves the inherent protections from the design, making it almost impossible for someone to discover the gaff. While James’ book tests have recently been copied by other producers that now sell versions of his products at Penguin, through Murphy’s, and at stores like Vanishing Inc., the quality of copy-cat book tests simply do not compare to the products we provide to the global community.

The book is fully examinable, and can truly be read from cover to cover. Unlike other book tests, all of the words used for performance have been woven into the text in a meaningful way that compliments the original text. They’re not out of place.

This book test is designed to be used exclusively as a “peek” book, so it does require minimal handling by the performer; however, no page number or other information is required for the performer to reveal the word being thought of by the participating spectator. The design of the gaff only allows one word to be revealed per page, but you can combine methods and patter to create other effects.

While some may consider the single-word reveal to be a limitation, it is more than offset by the fact that the book will withstand close scrutiny, and may even be left undetected in the hands of the audience for an extended periods.

The book test and performance notes provided were inspired by principles and concepts developed by Larry Becker, Richard Osterlind, James L. Clark, Banachek, Dick Christian, and others.