Houdini's Fabulous Magic

<p>Incredible escapes fantastic sleight-of-hand-Houdini's most challenging performances are dramatically portrayed in Houdini's Fabulous Magic. Walter Gibson co-author was in close touch with Harry Houdini for a number of years before his death and worked with the master magician in preparing material for the book. It is with the aid of Houdini's own scrapbooks and notes that this book was written.</p><p><br></p><p>The spectacular highlights of Houdini's career are described-and explained-here. Included are the famous escapes: escapes from a padlocked milk can filled with water; from locked jail cells; from a water-filled Chinese torture cell while suspended upside down; from packing cases weighted under water. Again in this book Houdini walks through a brick wall vanishes a 10000-pound elephant and is buried alive. Once more Houdini and his wife Bessie mysteriously exchange places in a locked trunk-in three seconds!</p><p><br></p><p>And Houdini the man is not ignored. His impact on the world in the early years of the twentieth century was enormous. He was a public hero who in his own way helped sweep out the cobwebs of nineteenth-century thinking. While doing so he distinguished himself as a patriot writer collector of magic aviator movie idol philanthropist and crusader against fraudulent spiritualistic practices.</p><p><br></p><p>This is a technical manual for magicians complete with illustrations and diagrams but it is also an astute analysis of the best of Houdini's magic and a readable biography of a man who turned himself into a legend. It is a book for would-be conjurers for professional necromancers for those curious about the methods and means of one of the most enchanting men of our century.</p>