Magician and escape artist Harry Houdini was quite the collector, filling warehouses and his Harlem home with books, posters, newspaper clippings, and more. It probably shouldn\u2019t be surprising that Houdini was a bit obsessive, but his collecting was next level. Some of his library was for the craft, and helped him build his act\u2014he collected books on safes and prison architecture, as well as catalogs from lock manufacturers\u2014but he also had an archivist\u2019s eye. Houdini had a particular obsession with documenting and preserving items related to the history of magic, spiritualism, and theater, and by the end of his life had amassed impressive collections that rivaled those at Harvard and the British Museum.<\/p>\n
Everywhere Houdini traveled he bought books, he had standing relationships with rare book dealers, and he took out ads in magazines asking for new materials and leads.The fixation was so extreme, according to the introduction to Eric Colleary\u2019s new book Houdini\u2019s Library<\/a>, that in a moment of frightening airplane turbulence Houdini remembered, \u201cHonestly I thought of my wife and theatrical collection.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to his book<\/a>, Dr. Colleary has put together an exhibition of materials also called \u201cHoudini\u2019s Library<\/a>,\u201d on display through January at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin. Just in time for the 100th anniversary of Houdini\u2019s death on Halloween, here are a few interesting books and items from the magician\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n The Houdini Library Catalog Harry Houdini, The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin First edition of the 1584, Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot The Sermons of Bernard de Clairvaux, with a forged letter claiming ownership by Martin Luther Ephemera about Count Cagliostro and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace Ephemera on the history of magic Information on a rival collector \u201cGrangerized\u201d copy of Life of Edmund Kean by Frederick William Hawkins Playbills and ads for automata Information on imitators Cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World Harry Houdini, A Magician Among the Spirits There\u2019s lots more in the book<\/a> and exhibition<\/a>\u2014if you\u2019re in Austin, be sure to check it out at UT Austin.<\/p>\n
Houdini typed up a fifty-three-page document cataloging all of the current books in his collection, which included his thoughts on each volume. My favorite note is for a 1901 book called Entschleirter Magnetismus by Joseph Gregerowitsch: \u201cThis Doctor is the best that ever tried this game and he actually believes in it himself. This hypnotism is a wonderful thing for those who believe in the power of the hips.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jean-Eug\u00e8ne Robert-Houdin was one of the first performers who inspired a young Erik Weisz to pick the stage name Harry Houdini, an homage to this early and important influence. But as Houdini spoke to Robert-Houdin\u2019s contemporaries and collected more information, he began to realize that his idol was mostly exaggerating and plagiarizing from other performers. Houdini\u2019s disillusionment became a book called The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin, which Houdini paid to have translated into French, Robert-Houdin\u2019s mother tongue.<\/p>\n
One of the earliest books in English known to have skeptically challenged the persecution of supposed witches. Houdini had this copy shipped from England during World War I, and paid an extra fourteen shillings for \u201cinsurance & war risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hermann Kyrieleis had a short, infamous career in 1893-96 forging fake documents attributed to Protestant reformer Martin Luther, including the letter included with Houdini\u2019s copy of sermons by a 11th century abbot, mystic, and co-founder of the Knights Templar. The book is real, but Luther\u2019s letter is not\u2014Kyrieleis was unmasked, arrested, declared insane, and tossed into an asylum. It\u2019s not clear whether Houdini believed the fake letter or knew this to be an example of a famous literary hoax.<\/p>\n
An 18th century scandal around a necklace tarred the reputations of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and numerous royals, but a magician known as Cagliostro was also at the center of the affair. Houdini\u2019s fascination with the scandal led him to scour Cagliostro\u2019s house in Paris and purchase troves of papers from London and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Houdini collected a ton of interesting items from magic\u2019s history, from the 13th century\u2019s Albertus Magnus; to the 19th century\u2019s George Parker Bidder, the six year old \u201ccalculating boy\u201d who would become a renowned engineer; to Henry Box Brown, who was born enslaved in Virginia, mailed himself to freedom, and became a lecturer and performer of magic in England; to Edwin Booth, a performer who was eclipsed in history by his brother, John Wilkes Booth. My favorite item from the selections in Dr. Colleary\u2019s book are the playbills for an amazingly titled 1826 show called \u201cOdd Sayings and Queer Doings,\u201d which seems ripe for revival as the title of a podcast.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an idea for a novel: Houdini had a rival in the magic librarian game named Dr. Saram R. Ellison, who collected over 2,000 books on magic and made scale models of illusions in his spare time. Houdini and Ellison were friends, but often jockeyed for the same items. Ellison\u2019s collections were donated to the New York Public Library, or sold\u2014though his wand collection ended up the Society of American Magicians.<\/p>\n
Houdini\u2019s library also had a number of one of a kind \u201csuper-illustrated\u201d books, editions that had been rebound with added stuff: pictures, autographs, letters, and other historical ephemera to complement the original text. Houdini had a number of these editions, which amounted to a way for a collector to compile and show off what they\u2019d amassed. This single volume about the life of Edmund Kean ballooned into a carefully edited, eight volume set that doubles as a history of theater told through the story of one figure.<\/p>\n
Long before your weird cousin fell in love with an AI chatbot, people were obsessed with automata and \u201ctalking machines,\u201d which had a 19th century heyday on the stage. This included \u201cEuphonia,\u201d an 1846 talking machine invented by Joseph Faber and displayed in London. It \u201cused a bellows for an air supply and intricate internal mechanisms to mimic the vocal tract.\u201d It looks like a large loom, with a woman\u2019s curly-haired head attached to the side. Freaky.<\/p>\n
Houdini also seems to have kept tabs on performers who were ripping him off, including the amazingly named \u201cCunning the Jail Breaker\u201d who would, like Houdini, wrap himself in chains and wriggle free.<\/p>\n
This 1862 book was in the library of Houdini\u2019s friend Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini had sent Doylea copy of this satanic panic defense of the Salem witch trials right before Harry and his wife hung out with the Doyles in Atlantic City. One evening\u2019s entertainment was Lady Doyle performing a seance, claiming to contact Houdini\u2019s mom\u2014Lady Doyle had fallen into spiritualism after their son died from a wound at the Somme and a bout of influenza. Her trick deeply upset Houdini, and Doyle and Houdini had a very public falling out, embarking on rival lecture tours. Doyle traveled around defending seances and their supposed proof of immortality, while Houdini toured the world decrying the false promises of the practice.<\/p>\n
Inspired by experiences like the one with Lady Doyle, Houdini wrote a book published in 1924 about the history of spiritualism and its \u201cdangerous deceptions,\u201d that drew from his extensive collections and personal experience with mediums and spiritualists. Houdini made a point of exposing fraudulent mediums who promised people connections with the dead, a practice that became especially predatory after the slaughter in World War I. Houdini\u2019s crusade was inspired by a sense of public duty, but was also personal: Houdini\u2019s father died when he was young and \u201chis grieving mother took him to see a local medium with the hope of locating missing insurance papers.\u201d<\/p>\n