March 24, 2011, Filed Under: Theatre + Performing ArtsHarry Houdini slideshow celebrates 137th birthday The Harry Ransom Center owns a collection of materials related to magician Harry Houdini, whose 137th birthday is today. This slideshow highlights some examples of materials in the collection. Parts of the Houdini (1874-1926) collection pertain to the numerous magicians with whom Houdini cultivated personal relationships, but the focus of this collection is the life and career of Houdini himself. Manuscript material in the collection includes Houdini’s correspondence with magicians and writers; letters to his wife Bess, 1890s–1926; manuscript notes and revisions for A Magician among the Spirits (1924), along with Houdini’s annotated printed copy; and the correspondence of A. M. Wilson, editor of The Sphinx, 1905–1923. Houdini’s films are represented by the script for The Master Mystery (1918), news clippings and a press kit for The Man from Beyond (1922), and publicity photographs. His interest in spiritualism is documented by a newspaper clipping file on spiritualism, manuscript notebooks on spiritualism and theater, and history of magic scrapbooks, 1837–1910. Please click on the thumbnails below to view full-size images. A signed copy of “Mysterious Harry Houdini Tricks Requiring No Practice or Special Apparatus.” On this copy, which Houdini signed May 29, 1921, he notes that it was “published as near as I can remember about 1894-5 [about?] end of 1894” Photo of Houdini suspended above crowd in front of Pittsburgh Post building, dated November 6, 1916. Poster promoting “Houdini’s Death-Defying Mystery: Escape from a galvanized iron can filled with water and secured by massive locks.” Photo of Houdini in chains in a jail cell. Undated and unidentified photographer.
