Houdini’s German Slander Trial Archive, 1902.

Houdini, Harry. Houdini’s German Slander Trial Archive, known as “The Cologne Papers.” Being a file of documents from the famous 1902 German court case in which Houdini successfully sued Cologne Patrolman Werner Graff and newspaper editor Johann Merfeld for slander. Graff alleged Houdini was not the “genius of escape” he claimed to be. Merfeld published the allegations. Houdini was vindicated in a court of law, and the judgement was upheld on appeal. The most significant item in the archive is a folio containing a nearly 50-page-long handwritten transcript of the court proceedings, in German. This is bound in cloth with marbled endsheets, elaborately gilt stamped on the front board with old German text which roughly translates to “Public Apology! In the Name of the King against the policeman Werner Graf of the Cologne Police. Harry Houdini.” No Houdini biographer to date has had access to this folio. Many passages have been boldly underlined or marked in pencil, presumably by Houdini, who habitually made notations of this sort, and who would use scenes from the trial in his own publications in following years. Also bound in is a handwritten notice in which the plaintiff is identified as “Weiss” as opposed to “Houdini”; and a short summation of the judgement, typed and signed on three legal-size sheets and signed by a German official. Tipped on to various blank leaves are scattered newspaper clippings in both German and English, and other official documents. Two typescripts co