Existing comment:
Harry Houdini's Scrapbooks
The future "Genius of Escape Who Will Startle and Amaze" ran away from home when he was twelve. A postcard from "Your truant son, Ehrich Weiss," to the mother he adored is the earliest example of Harry Houdini's handwriting in the collections of the Library of Congress, relic of the early evasion by the young man who had been born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24. 1874.
Throughout his life, Houdini explored, with depth and passion, the history and practice of the illusion arts. He administered the record of his own career with equal passion, and willed his entire collection to the Library of Congress. Ever the self-promoter, Houdini maintained scrapbooks of all of his promotional advertising. |