Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini PDF Author: Rita T. Mullin
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781402749537
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
A biography of Harry Houdini, who became famous as America's most famous escape artist and magician.

Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini PDF Author: Rita T. Mullin
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781402749537
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
A biography of Harry Houdini, who became famous as America's most famous escape artist and magician.

Houdini's Escapes and Magic

Houdini's Escapes and Magic PDF Author: Walter B. Gibson
Publisher: Ishi Press
ISBN: 9784871876032
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
The secrets of the greatest magician of them all are revealed in this new one-volume edition of two classic long-out-of-print works, Houdini's Escapes and Houdini's Magic. Prepared by Walter Gibson after Houdini's death in 1926, from the magicians private notebook and memoranda, and with the assistance of his widow, Beatrice, and his friend and attorney, Bernard M. L. Ernst, then President of the Society of American Magicians, these books provide the most complete description available of Houdini's feats and how he performed them. In effect, these are the books that Houdini himself would have written, if only he had lived long enough. Here are the details of the spectacular illusions: Walking Through a Brick Wall, The Spanish Maiden Escape, The Milk Can Challenge, and many more such marvelous feats. Special topics covered in the first volume include rope ties and chain releases, underwater escapes, and box, trunk, barrel and coffin escapes. In learning about his escapes, the reader will also learn about Houdini himself. As Melbourne Christopher, America's foremost illusionist, writes: "It will soon become apparent to the reader that though Houdini was daring, he never took an uncalculated risk. He would not accept a challenge unless he was sure he could meet it. He was physically fit, an athlete and a strong swimmer . Yet his assistants were poised to rescue him if he didn't surface on schedule from an underwater box. A dozen less careful performers would have been drowned or seriously injured because they attempted this feat without sufficient knowledge or without taking necessary precautions. The second volume on Houdini's magic includes sections on impromptu tricks for close up performance; card tricks; slate tricks; message-reading and second-sight tricks; platform tricks; stage illusions and special effects (including a mid-air vanish and decapitation act); tricks that Houdini used to duplicate the effects of fraudulent mediums in his anti-spiritualistic campaigns and finally the notes Houdini made on the magic of the great Harry Kellar. All magicians, professional as well as amateur, will welcome the republication of these two classic books. WALTER GIBSON, after completing Houdini's Escapes and Houdini's Magic, turned to fiction writing, creating the famed mystery character of Lamont Cranston, also known as The Shadow. Under the pen name of Maxwell Grant, he wrote novel-length stories for The Shadow Magazine for more than fifteen years. These novels were adapted for The Shadow radio program and today they are being reprinted in paperback and hard-cover editions. Under his own name, Mr. Gibson has written The Master Magicians and many other books in the fields of magic, games and the occult.

Houdini

Houdini PDF Author: Adam Begley
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300230796
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, an exuberant biography of the world's greatest escape artist In 1916, the war in Europe having prevented a tour abroad, Harry Houdini wrote a film treatment for a rollicking motion picture. Though the movie was never made, its title, "The Marvelous Adventures of Houdini: The Justly Celebrated Elusive American," provides a succinct summary of the Master Mystifier's life. Born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874, Houdini grew up an impoverished Jewish immigrant in the Midwest and became world-famous thanks to talent, industry, and ferocious determination. He concealed as a matter of temperament and professional ethics the secrets of his sensational success. Nobody knows how Houdini performed some of his dazzling, death-defying tricks, and nobody knows, finally, why he felt compelled to punish and imprison himself over and over again. Must a self-liberator also be a self-torturer? Tracking the restless Houdini's wide-ranging exploits, acclaimed biographer Adam Begley asks the essential question: What kind of man was this? About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." - New York times "Exemplary." - Wall St. Journal "Distinguished." - New Yorker "Superb." - The Guardian

The Secrets of Houdini

The Secrets of Houdini PDF Author: John Clucas Cannell
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 9780486229133
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
A friend and colleague of Houdini discusses the master magician's career and explains many of his tricks and escape devices

Wonder Shows

Wonder Shows PDF Author: Fred Nadis
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813541212
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
In Wonder Shows, Fred Nadis offers a colorful history of these traveling magicians, inventors, popular science lecturers, and other presenters of “miracle science” who revealed science and technology to the public in awe-inspiring fashion. The book provides an innovative synthesis of the history of performance with a wider study of culture, science, and religion from the antebellum period to the present.

Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini PDF Author: Janice Weaver
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9781419700149
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The life of Harry Houdini and his less famous partner, his brother Dash, includes details of his well-known career as a magician, as well as his interest in exposing fake mediums and other frauds. Sidebars highlight topics related to the early 20th century, such as child labor, the dime museums, and early aviation, an interest of Houdini's.

Houdini, Master of Escape

Houdini, Master of Escape PDF Author: Adrien Stoutenburg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description


Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini PDF Author: Janet Piehl
Publisher: Lerner Publications
ISBN: 1580137059
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
Each book in this middle-grade series is illustrated with photographs and illustrations while sidebars, a timeline, and entertaining cartoons further illuminate each subject's personality.

Houdini's Box

Houdini's Box PDF Author: Adam Phillips
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Houdini’s Box explores four different escape artists. There is the case history of the little girl who is oddly committed to playing her own wayward version of hide-and-seek. There is Harry Houdini, “the greatest magician the world has ever seen,” an assimilated Jew and immigrant escapee who compulsively reinvents and re-enacts his own confinement. There is a patient of Phillips’s who has come to him after being badgered by his (ex-) girlfriend, who says she wants to help “his next ex.” He is a man who has become entranced, not with woman as object of desire, but with flight from woman, a man hypnotized by the infinite freedom of escape, always arriving at the place from which he is escaping. And finally, there is the poet Emily Dickinson, who for the last twenty years of her life found freedom in self-imposed solitary confinement. Whether we are getting away from something or getting away with something, we cannot describe ourselves without also describing what we need to escape from and what we want to escape to. In this, his most captivating book to date, Adam Phillips reminds us why people often feel most alive in the very moment of escape.

Houdini

Houdini PDF Author: Tom Lalicki
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497616239
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
Originally published as: SPELLBINDER: The Life of Harry Houdini. He was born Ehrich Weiss but, at an early age, he chose another name for himself. He wanted a name to suit his career of magic and entertainment and he chose a name that paid homage to one of the legendary magicians of all time: Robert Houdin. His illusions and escapes were more astonishing and more challenging than anyone had ever done before and he eclipsed the names of all other magicians as his fame reached around the world, made him famous and made him the most famous illusionist ever. Houdini disappeared through brick walls. He escaped from straitjackets and then straitjackets immersed in water. He performed escapes in public places and from jail cells in major cities--and the crowds flocked to his performances. Tom Lalicki tells Houdini's story with a fascinating mix of text and images, revealing the facts and juxtaposing them with startling images of a master entertainer performing masterfully and mysteriously, mesmerizing his audiences and mystifying experts with his skill and his invention.