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Fred Hebard wrote:

> There is a story in the Sunday NY Times book reviews about magicians
> (http://nytimes.com/2003/12/07/books/review/07TELLERT.html, free, but
> signup required), and one John Nevil Maskelyne is mentioned there.  I
> wonder if anybody on the list knows whether he is kin to the Maskelyne
> of Nautical Almanac fame?

Apparently, he is. I have long been wondering about this. When doing
library searches on Nevil, the stronomer, the name John Nevil Maskelyne
(1839-1917) inevitably pops up. He was a very famous magician.

Today, motivated by your question, I poked around in the internet and
found an answer: There was one Jasper Maskelyne (b. 1902), also a
magician, who claimed to have been related to the astronomer. But he also
was the grandson of John Nevil. See

http://aboutfacts.net/People20.htm

Of course, I know nothing about the reliability of this source or the
authenticity of the claim. If it's true, it is most ironic that, according
to the Encyclopedia Britannica, John Nevil Maskelyne was a watchmaker by
training.

Herbert Prinz

   

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