It was the June of 1986 when our intrepid hero, Stephen Tucker, flushed with the success of his previous magazine, Spell-Binder sat down and imagined Chicanery. It was to be a monthly A4 sized publication with a modest (but action-packed) 12 pages per issue. Little was he to know then that only two complete volumes would ever be published. There was a special 36 page special birthday issue but we'll get to that later.

The first three issues flowed from his pen and magicians around the globe heaved a collective sigh of relief that Spell-Binder had been re-born. "A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet" they were oft heard to mutter! Then when Chicanery issue four was due for release our hero hit upon a great money-saving idea. He decided to make the issue a double issue, which would save him a fortune on postage, stapling and envelopes etc. This brilliant idea passed all the subscribers by as they were too elated that the great one had deemed them worthy of a double dose of their favourite magic magazine.

Another thing that passed all the subscribers by was the fact that there were some very strangely named Chicanery contributors. From the high quality of their offerings they were obviously geniuses, but why had they never been seen performing at conventions before? Why had none of them published their own books, produced videos or even lectured anywhere? The truth can now be told. In those far-off days our hero had very few friends. In fact, his pens were his only magical companions and so it was that he decided to make them all famous! He knew that many authors wrote under various pen names and so it was that lan Velleda, Don Parker, Nick Fountain, Mark Erpen and many others became as real to Chicanery subscribers as all the other real contributors.

By the way, there are also many top-flight contributions from some of the most famous names in Magicdom within the pages of Chicanery including; Phil Goldstein, John Carney, Aldo Colombini, Wayne Dobson, Nick Trost, Bill Goldman, David Britland, Reinhard Muller etc.

As none of the subscribers had complained at the double issue 4/5, Stephen Tucker struck again with issues 7/8 and later with 10/11. The first volume ended with another single issue 12 in the May of 1987. It was then that our hero, after buying the latest Beano Summer Special, decided to nick the idea and produce a 36-page Chicanery Birthday Issue in June 1987.

The second volume of Chicanery then started in July 1987 with issue 1. However, it wasn't very long before Stephen decided to save a few pennies again and released double issues 3/4 and 5/6 in quick succession. With single issues 7 and then 8 it looked as if he had decided to walk the straight and narrow, play the game. It was only in the March of 1988 that Stephen in an unprecedented step dropped an absolute bombshell on the subscribers. Chicanery was to end at the completion of the second volume! You can well imagine the effect this had on thousands of magic-starved magi worldwide. Questions were asked in the Houses of Parliament.

In one final attempt to create magical history and save an absolute fortune in stapling and envelopes Stephen had a cunning plan; so cunning in fact that Edmund Blackadder's manservant, Baldrick, would have been proud of it. Stephen released a combined quadruple issue of 9, 10, 11 and 12! Fearing the worse... he left the country, adopted a new identity and was only able to return to the UK in October 1995 when he took over the editorship of The Budget magazine but that's a whole new story!