$36,000
Important Houdini spiritualism scrapbook. Being a large scrapbook kept and used by Houdini in his last years, during an era in which his crusades against fraudulent spirit mediums were at their zenith. The contents include hundreds upon hundreds of clippings from American, British, and foreign newspapers and magazines, and discuss the exploits of famous and infamous spiritualists, including the famous Boston medium Margery. In addition to the clippings, a scattering of handbills and ephemeral printed matter (including two TLSs to Houdini, one with his marginal notes) related to spiritualism or specific spiritualist meetings or séances, and several feature-length clippings discussing various aspects of Houdini’s life and career. Dozens if not hundreds of Houdini’s handwritten notations fill the margins or serve to date and identify the clippings, even though many of the articles were clearly supplied by a clipping service. In specific instances, he comments about the articles in the margins (“Proves Munn is [indecipherable] & against me! [signed] Houdini” “This is minister who lied about Margery” “End of the Los A[ngeles] affair started by C. Sloan,” and more). On one page, Houdini writes the phrase “Methods of gaining information” twice, a possible allusion to a chapter in A Magician Among the Spirits regarding the methods used by fraudulent mediums to obtain apparently secret information from their sitters. Several clippings in the book are not related to spiritualism specif
Auctioneer:
Potter & Potter
Date:
2014-08-23
