David Price wanted desperately to succeed as a magician. He had the manual skill, but war injuries took him off the stage and put him behind a desk as an accountant. Yet his passion for magic history vaulted him to fame as one of the foremost collectors of the 20th century. Absorbing multiple accumulations of posters and other memorabilia, he created the Egyptian Hall Museum at his home in Tennessee, which he used as the primary resource for his extensive writings about magic. Based on his ten-year friendship with Price and lengthy interviews with his son, Michael Claxton recounts the adventure of a diverted dream turned heroic effort to preserve magic history. David and his best friend Paul McWilliams (1904-1984) fought during the 1930s to save the secrets of conjuring from the threat of exposure. When that failed, David turned his attention to saving the art in another way, by curating the treasures of its past. This story of that effort is populated with an eccentric cast of magicians, collectors, and even politicians, who all played a part in the making of Egyptian Hall.