Houdini Books at Magic Collector’s Expo 2026

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Arthur Moses and I will sharing a dealers table at the May 12-14 Magic Collector’s Expo (MCE) 2026 which is being held in Newark NJ and will feature a tour of The Billy Rose Theatre Division’s Magic Collection at The New York Public Library.

This is rare chance to pick up “signed” copies of latest books by Arthur Moses and I at special Magic Collector’s Expo prices.

As well as other books by Joe Notaro

  • Houdini’s The Zanetti Mystery Plus candidates for ghostwriting the story, 2022
  • Houdini’s Schooldays Plus History of the Story, 2023
  • Houdini Adaptations, plus Playwriting and Film Treatments (The Grim Game and Terror Island Stories), 2024
  • Houdini’s Jorkins & Co, 2024

And books by Arthur Moses

  • Houdini Speaks Out: “I am Houdini! And you are a fraud!”, 2014
  • Houdini Periodical Bibliography References From 1898 – 2015, 2015
  • Harry Houdini & Sherlock Holmes Together Again in 1908: “Auf Den Spuren Houdinis” On the Trail of Houdini, 2020
  • Harry Houdini & Sherlock Holmes (Extraordinary Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – The Missing Athlete): Aventuras Extraordinarias De Sherlock Holmes – O Atleta Desaparecido, 2020
  • Harry Houdini & Sherlock Holmes “Extraordinary Adventures of a Secret Police – The Missing Athlete”: Aventuras extraordinarias dum policia secreta – O athleta desapperecido, 2020
  • The Houdini Pitchbooks, 2022
  • Houdini Periodical Bibliography References From 1898 – 2023, Revised Third edition 2024

It’s also your chance to pick up the following NEW Houdini books, making their debut at the MCE.

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – October 20 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

Letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and Terror Island:

Today, I share October 20 Letter:

My Dear Q.K.,

Well we are back here for another picture.

Expect to be finished inside of 5 or 6 weeks.

We sail for England December 16th on the Mauratina.

Will be gone 6 months.

…

Houdini

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – September 10 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

Letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and Terror Island:

  • Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – September 10 1919
  • TBS

Today, I share September 10 Letter:

Dear Quincy Kilby,

Leaving today for Lasky Studio Hollywood California until end of November or rather until middle of November.

Am going to do an undersea picture and in it shall make use of my swiming abilities.

Already it is planned a number of daring swiming stunts and whT I shall do with a fleet of submarines, is awful.

Nothing else, we leave to day will drop you alinr when possible.

Regards best wishes

yours as always the same old

Houdini

Regards to Mrs. Kilby from both of us,

Am sending you a picture of Tom Jefferson Ann Forest and myself.

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – July 12 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

Today, I share July 12 Letter:

Dear Q.K.,

My wrist getting along okay, July 20th, will try and finish the last few scenes, and return to New York leaving on or about July 25th.

…

…

The Grim Game will be finished next Sunday, my wrist will be strong enough to do the finishing stunts.

Tom Jefferson is at work in another studio.

Will try and see him before we leave.

Must close bes of all good wishes, from Mrs. Houdini and your pal to you all

Houdini

P.S, …

We will remain here until on or about July 26th.

After that New York Address.

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – June 28 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

Today, I share June 28 Letter:

And Poem by Q.K. for The Silver Wedding of Harry and Beatrice Houdini:

The letter mentions breaking his wrist again; he first broke it when filming The Master Mystery and now during the filming of The Grim Game which was 90% finished.

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – June 9 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

Today, I share June 9 Letter:

Hollywood, California June 9, 1919

Dear Q.K.

Thomas Jefferson and myself frequently converse about you, and it was through an accident that I found out young Joe Jefferson was a friend of mine.

I thought that young Joe was an old man, but it appears that he was younger than I.

Worked with him in vaudeville, that is he was on the same bill, and very pleasant, and very pleasant weeks we had…

So Mr. Thomas J. and I have lots to talk about…

He does not know yet that he is to be “murdered” by an arch fiend in the first act, and though he always asks me what will be become of him, I do not give him a sensible answer.

So we have a fine time, as no one really knows the full story…

Houdini

…

 

So, who was young Joe Jefferson?  Let’s look at who his father was first. Joseph Jefferson III (1829-1905) was the 4th generation of a theatrical family that was established by Thomas Jefferson (1728 -1807), an English actor who managed several theatres.  Thomas’s son Joseph Jefferson I (1774-1832) came to America in 1795 on tour and remained to manage the John Street and Park Theatres in New York and the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.  He played a comic actor.  Joseph Jefferson II (1804-1842) was an actor as well.  All three Jefferson’s were noted for playing old men.  Joseph Jefferson III was born 20 February, 1829 at Philadelphia United States of America, son of Joseph Jefferson, actor, and his wife Cornelia Frances Thomas Burke.  He began is stage career at 4, and, after his father died in 1842, relied on acting for a living. At 21 he married Margaret Clements Lockyer. On February 18, 1861 his wife died, leaving four children.  On December 20, 1867, he married Sarah Warren the niece of the actor William Warren. Fame came with his creation of the role of Rip Van Winkle. He died in 1905.

Young Joe

Joseph Warren Jefferson IV was a child of the second wife.  He was born July 6, 1869.  He was a member of his father’s company.  So at the time of the Grim Game, Joe Jefferson IV would have been 50 years old and Houdini 45 years old, making young Joe Jefferson five years older not younger than Houdini. Joseph Jefferson IV (1869 – 1919) performed at Macauley’s Theatre three times in Rip Van Winkle.

What was the connection with Thomas J and young Joe? Thomas Jefferson played Old Man Cameron in the Grim Game.  Like young Joe Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson was one of Joseph Jefferson III sons. He acted in his dads company in several roles opposite his father.  He became an actor in D.W. Griffith’s stock company appearing with Houdini in The Grim Game.`

9.8 CGC Graded Houdini (1953) Beta Paramount Pictures USA 1991

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CGC Home Video, a division of the Certified Guaranty Company, announced in 2023 that it would begin grading Betamax and VHS tapes.

Early last year, John Cox, had his factory sealed VHS copy graded by CGC:

Which led me to bring my ungraded factory sealed Beta copy over to John’s place to see if it was worth getting graded. Suffice it to say, this Houdini nut rolled the dice and sent it in to be graded.

After waiting 5 months, a box arrived at the house, and to my surprise, it received a 9.8 grade, which far exceeded my expectations.

CGC uses a 10 point-scale for home video, with 9.8 signifying “Near Mint/Mint” a virtually perfect copy.

Betamax tapes were produced in smaller quantities than VHS. And the 1991 home video release of Houdini came near the very end of the Betamax formats life, making factory-sealed Betamax copies, an extremely rare item, let alone one graded at 9.8.

 

Houdini Was Born Not In America, But in Hungary

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With Houdini’s 152nd Birthday coming up on March 24th, thought I would share my issue of Magie, no. 12, December 1932 that provides early published evidence that Houdini was not born in American on April 6th, 1874, but in Hungary on March 24th, 1874.

Page 165:

Page 165 Translation (courtesy of Patrick Culliton):

Page 166:

Also of interest is page 167, where Ottokar Fisher writes:

Page 167 Translation (courtesy of google translate):

On the question: “Houdini’s Birthplace”

When I began reading Harold Kellock’s book Life-Story, published in 1928, I was extremely surprised to find that the city of Appleton, Wisconsin, was listed as Houdini’s birthplace. On the occasion of his guest performance at the Ronacher Theater in Vienna in March 1902, Houdini himself told me that he was born in Hungary and came to the United States with his father at  the age of two. I also know that he traveled to Budapest during Easter week, on Good Friday, a day which there were no performances, to visit his relatives. For me therefore, there has always been no doubt that Houdini was a native, Hungarian, which I also expressed in my obituary, which appeared after his death in the artist magazine “Das Programm.” I personally find it incomprehensible what purpose Houdini’s successors are pursuing by claiming he was born in Appleton! Such a claim is, in my opinion, absolutely incorrect and hardly verifiable. This is all the more so since the president of the Association of Hungarian Amateur Magicians (M.A.M.E.), Dr. Vilmos Lenard, through his thorough research in the birth registers of the Budapest Jewish Community and through contact with Houdini’s relatives who still live in Budapest today has clearly and irrefutably established Budapest as Houdini’s true birthplace and is able to substantiate the accuracy of his research officially certified documents.

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – May 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

Today, I share May 11 Telegram:

Dear Q.K.,

We start in to work tomorrow. Been delayed. Thomas Jefferson is in my cast, strange you write to me regarding him.

Shall convey your regards, He plays my rich crabbed uncle.

…

Houdini

And a undated [May ?] Telegram:

Dear Q.K.?

Thought the enclosed [Still 298-22] might interest you. Have started in to work. Thomas Jefferson is my cast. Will write you more in detail as soon as I get opportunity, Regards H.H

Will have to postpone our Silver wedding mayhap a month or so.

 

Find it interesting that Houdini was thinking he may have to postpone his 25th Wedding Anniversary due to working on The Grim Game.

Related:

Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – April 12 1919 and April 24 1919

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I recently went through a Houdini scrapbook compiled by Houdini’s personal friend, Quincy Kilby, and thought I would share items related to his movies in chronological order.

Previously we looked at letters from 1918 and the Master Mystery:

And now we look at letters from 1919 and The Grim Game:

  • Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – March 7 1919
  • Movie Related Correspondence with Quincy Kilby – April 12 1919 and April 24 1919
  • TBS

Today, I share a April 12th Letter:

 Dear Q.K.,.

. . .

We leave for Los Angeles Calif Wednesday [4/16] and my address will be for the next 5 weeks or say 6 weeks Lasky Studios Hollywood Calif.

. . .

Houdini

And a handwritten April 24 letter:

Dear Q.K.

Arrived Okay.

My address for (?) next 2 months – Lasky Studios Hollywood California

nothing new. Expect to start in about first week in May.

Hopes all well

Yours as always

Houdini

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