Gary Shattuck’s engaging history of Vermont in the mid-nineteenth century is a masterful
account of a pivotal period often overlooked by Vermonters and Vermont historians….  Shattuck’s descriptions of Vermont’s experiences with abortion and infanticide and the creation of its registry system in 1857 are first rate.
Randolph A. Roth, Professor of History and Sociology, Ohio State University

To explain Vermont’s population growth of a miniscule .01% in the 1850s, Green Mountain historians traditionally declared it the beginning of a “long” winter for the state.  Gary Shattuck’s Magician has put a blow torch to that perspective as hot as the fire that consumed the Statehouse.  Drawing on fresh sources like the directors’ minutes of the Rutland Railroad, the courts, the Vermont Medical Society, and more, Shattuck reveals a lively society coping with urbanism, new technology, social issues, criminality, and more as it struggled with the traditional reverence for individuality and the need for statewide standards.

H. Nicholas Muller III, Historian and author

We are experiencing a new golden age of Vermont history, and Gary Shattuck is at the head of
the parade.  Unlike many Vermont historians, Shattuck never accepts any conventional wisdom without
rigorous proof.  His diligent research reveals evidence that contradicts our nostalgic notions of the
past.  By the Wand of Some Magician opens up the second half of the nineteenth century as no other study has. 
Paul S. Gillies, Esq., author The Law of the Hills: A Judicial History of Vermont

In By the Wand of Some Magician, Gary Shattuck turns his formidable research skills to a relatively understudied period in Vermont history.  With particular emphasis on the 1850s, Shattuck highlights the tensions and fault lines that afflicted Vermonters as they grappled with enormous changes wrought by the arrival of the railroads. 
Alan Berolzheimer, Editor, Vermont Historical Society