Houdini amassed a huge collection of material related to magic, and he was always looking for more. One is heaped with filing cases of prints. A dozen and a half rooms are lined with shelves and these with books, old, new, small, large. The article begins by describing Houdini’s NYC home as a warehouse of books, scraps of paper, and antique posters:Ī three-story house crammed with fifteen thousand books, fifty thousand prints, half a million cuttings and four tons of theatrical bills stands on an obscure New York block and domiciles a bibliophile–Houdini the Handcuff King. ” In it, Houdini repeatedly refers to himself as a “bibliophile” (a lover of books). Of everything I read while preparing this post, my favorite was a posthumously published 1927 interview called “ Houdini’s Literary Escape. Houdini fans still hold séances every Halloween to try to contact the great performer. But, no matter how many séances Bess attended after her husband’s death, she never heard those code words. They came up with a series of secret codes that, if spoken by a spiritualist, would let Bess know it was really him. He and Bess agreed that after his death, he would try to contact her. The thing is, though, that Houdini desperately wanted to believe in spiritualism. Cecilia, having been Jewish, never would have suggested such a symbol. For one, Cecilia never really learned English - the letter’s language. Houdini knew immediately that Lady Doyle had not spoken with his mother. Lady Doyle claimed to contact Houdini’s mother and wrote out a long letter purportedly communicated by Cecilia’s spirit. Houdini’s fight with spiritualism culminated when he agreed to a séance with Lady Doyle (Arthur Conan Doyle’s wife). Houdini’s Exposes ( Harry Ransom Center, UT Austin )
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