{"product_id":"2026100011028-secondhand-the-man-who-was-magic-a-fable-of-innocence","title":"The Man Who Was Magic: A Fable Of Innocence","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: 1st ed.,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Wear and tear with damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a world where illusion and deception reign, a genuinely magical man arrives in a city of conjurers and tricksters, and his very authenticity makes him the most dangerous outsider of all. The Man who was Magic by Paul Gallico is a tender and allegorical fable that chronicles the journey of Adam, a young man possessing real, wondrous magic, who wanders into a community of magicians whose tricks are based entirely on artifice and sleight of hand. His true gifts — making flowers genuinely bloom from thin air and conversing with animals — are met not with wonder, but with suspicion, hostility, and fear. The novel unfolds with the quiet warmth and moral clarity of a parable, asking uncomfortable questions about why humanity so often punishes what it cannot understand.\n\nGallico, celebrated for his extraordinary ability to illuminate the human condition through deceptively simple narratives — as seen in The Snow Goose and Mrs Harris Goes to Paris — brings his signature blend of gentle whimsy and profound emotional depth to this story. The tale operates on multiple levels, functioning simultaneously as a charming fantasy and a pointed meditation on conformity, the persecution of the innocent, and the cost of authentic virtue in a world built on pretence. Rich with compassion and suffused with a melancholy wisdom, it leaves the reader to ponder a quietly devastating question: in a society of fakes, is there any place for the genuinely miraculous?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50572679020763,"sku":"2026100011028-SECONDHAND","price":70.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/c5780fc7-342c-4acd-a52d-38ebcc43e042.png?v=1791167283","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100011028-secondhand-the-man-who-was-magic-a-fable-of-innocence","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}