As promised in a previous post, I am sharing a condensed summary of the first 29 publications (9/18/1920 to 4/2/1921) of Houdini’s School Days leading up to the final publication (4/9/1921), Houdini’s Last Great Stunt at Rathgar.

Hope you enjoy this special treat which is being shared for the first time:

Harry Houdini at the age of fifteen is sent to Rathgar, a school for troublesome boys.  He is introduced to Dick Heart, a sneak, and Arthur Merlin, the First Eleven captain.

Later Heart interferes with Houdini. A fight is arranged, and Houdini quickly defeats Heart, much to the surprise of his schoolfellows.

Houdini overhears a conversation between Heart and a flashy dressed man. Heart is entrusted with money to take to the bank of Burnash. He invites Merlin to accompany him.  He introduces Merlin to a billiard saloon.  Merlin loses eight pounds of the headmaster’s money. Houdini recognizes the billiard shark, and plays him a game. He wins back Merlin’s eight pounds.

Houdini and Merlin are attacked in the grounds of the bank manager’s house. The burglars lock them in an empty shed. They escape, and in turn, lock the burglars in the strong room.

The Head orders Houdini and Merlin to his study for punishment, and accuses them of theft. They mutiny, and lock themselves in a class-room.

Harold Jugson, the new scholar, is introduced. Mr. Jugson, the bank manager, saves them from the doctor’s anger. The new pupils – the “Terrible Twins” – upset the school; Merlin is knocked out. Houdini challenges them to a fight.

He beats Joe Barker after a terrible tussle.  They return to school through a wood, and find Jugson tied to a tree. They rescue him.

Burnash Fair is put “out of bounds.” Houdini & Co. determine to visit the fair. They meet the doctor and Heart there. Heart has set a trap for them.

Heart takes the clown’s place at the circus. On their return, to Rathgar the Doctor sends for Houdini and Merlin.

Houdini has trouble once again with the “Terrible Twins”.

Houdini and Merlin are attacked by the twins and Ginger, the school porter. They escape from the Twins’ study, and run away from school.

Houdini and Merlin meet Lord Markham. He invites them to breakfast with him.

The doctor heads a deputation to Lord Markham. He meets Houdini and Merlin, and demands an explanation.

Lord Markham makes Houdini and Merlin promise to return at once to Rathgar.

They do so, and meet a new pupil, Percy Vere, who poses as spiritualist, and claims great detective abilities.

The terrible twins Joe and Jim Barker are in trouble.  Jim is ill with measles, and Joe, becoming very unpopular, bolts from school. Houdini and Merlin search for him on Preacher’s Island.

They find him tied up in a sack. They release Joe, and he tells them Flash Ben had attacked and bound him. Flash Ben returns, Houdini & Co. overwhelm and capture him.

They afterwards release Flash Ben, who goes away. Joe Barker remains on the island, hidden in a tree. Flash Ben returns at night and searches in the ruined hut. He brings forth a parcel tied up in a cotton handkerchief, which he deposits in his boat. Heart and a card-sharper named Fitz George turn at the island in a boat. They demand a share of the treasure from Flash Ben. Joe Barker escapes in Flash Ben’s boat with the treasure. He hides it among the play-boxes, and after writing a letter to his brother, starts off for London. The jewels prove to have been stolen from Lord Markham’s castle. He writes to Dr. Dickson, and suggests that Houdini, and Merlin have hidden them in a spirit of mischief. The gems are found in Merlin’s play-box.

Merlin is told by Dr. Dickson that he is under a cloud, but pending investigation he is to have his liberty. Houdini and Merlin go for a ramble towards the sea. They are captured by the pupils of Crag Castle College, and accused of attempting to set fire to a wood. Mr. Grimthorpe Jones, the headmaster, orders them to be locked in separate cells. Houdini makes a daring descent from his prison window, and escapes from his raptors on a borrowed horse. He returns to Crag Castle College disguised as an apple woman and rescues Merlin.  Cycling back to Rathgar, Houdini and Merlin meet Fitz George, the billiard sharp, who tells them of Heart’s connection with the stolen Markham jewels. The “Dauntless Three” of Crag Castle College challenge Houdini & Co to a battle royal.

Houdini & Co accept the challenge and meet the Dauntless Three at the Three Beeches. Tough Ben appears, and strikes Houdini a terrible blow. They carry Houdini back to college, but Dr. Dickson disbelieves their story. He decides to personally investigate, and meets Tough Ben, who give him a shock.

Note: This info was compiled from the Merry and Bright’ book in my collection that was once owned by Harry and Bess Houdini and signed by Harry Houdini on the first page.

I am the proud owner of all 3 Houdini issues of 2004 reprints by Girasol Collectibles:

1. March 1924. “The Spirit of Fakers of Hermannstadt” (part 1 of 2) p3+. “The Eyrie – Ask Houdini” p83+.
2. April 1924. “The Hoax Of the Spirit Lover” p3+. “The Spirit Fakers Of Hermannstadt” (part 2 of 2) p52+. “Ask Houdini” p86+.
3. May-June-July 1924 (single issue) “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” p3+. “Ask Houdini p167+.

While not as rare as the originals, these limited Girasol Collectibles are now out of print and extremely hard to come by all three.

The Girasol Collectible was a ‘Pulp Replica’ designed to give the reader a true taste of the pulps without the frailty or expense of a decades-old collectable.  That said, the replicas are no longer inexpensive ($60 to $100), but still cheaper than frail originals ($600 to $1000).

The outer covers, the interior pages and the advertisements are all taken directly from the pages of the original magazines. They were left intact to give the reader a true feel of the originals, as well as appreciating them for their interest.

The original magazines were printed on cheap pulpwood paper high in acid content, which contributed in part to their scarcity today. These editions are on an off-white bond paper intended to simulate the original look, while offering a greater longevity.

The overall construction and appearance are as faithful to the original items as was reasonably possible.

Future posts will look at the Ask Houdini sections of each magazine.

HHCE Collection

Thought I would share a short Houdini article from my February 29, 1924 copy of The Vaudeville News Trade Journal that I found very interesting and packed with info for 1924.

HHCE Collection

Herbert Allingham was the writer of a number of short story series that Houdini attached his name with:

• Jorkins & Co (Film Fun)
• The Amazing Exploits of Houdini(The Kinema Comic)
• Houdini’s Schooldays (Merry and Bright)

This week we explore, Allingham’s contribution to Houdini’s Schooldays.

According to Julia Jones book, Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory,

“In 1920 the escapologist Harry Houdini made a well-publicised visit to England. Merry & Bright responded to its readers’ interest by giving them Houdini’s Schooldays as their weekly serial. As the editor explained, ‘A man like Houdini could not fail to have had a wonderful early life and these stories tell of his adventures while still at school.’ In Merry & Bright’s version, however, the boy Houdini was not Erich Weiss, the rabbi’s son from Budapest, growing up impoverished in America; he was a cricket playing, boater-wearing fine young fellow at Rathgar College. He was in fact Will Holt, Allingham’s Duffer, with the Dufferish-ness reduced a fraction and the agility played up. Only a few new sentences and occasional descriptors were needed to make this happen and, apart from a change of proper nouns, Houdini’s Schooldays was simply the fourth printing of A Regular Duffer, the story that Allingham had first written in 1904 for Aldine’s True Blue. This seems to have been Allingham’s own initiative. A diary entry for 10 June 1920 states that he ‘went to New Cross and saw Houdini. Fixed up with him about school days.”

The four printings of Regular Duffer are as follows:

1. A Regular Duffer (True Blue 1904)
2. Will Holt’s Schooldays (Aldine Library c1908)
3. Chums at Rathgar (Puck 1911)
4. Houdini’s Schooldays (Merry&Bright 1920)

And I have originals of two of these in my collection.

• Will Holt’s Schooldays (Aldine Library c1908)
• Houdini’s Schooldays (Merry and Bright 1920)

That’s right, I am the proud new caretaker of a Merry and Bright’ book that was once owned by Harry and Bess Houdini and signed by Harry Houdini on the first page.

This book, “Merry and Bright”, contains 30 publications of “The Favorite Comic” published in London from Sept 1920 to April 1921. “Merry and Bright” comics featuring Houdini’s Schooldays” was 8 pages of newsprint published every week. These comics include both amusing illustrations and short fictional stories. The newspaper sold in London for three halfpence english coins (1 1/2 d).

Houdini enjoyed reading the stories and likely paid to have this book created for his personal library.

I am so excited to finally own something of Houdini’s and believe it or not, this is the only item in my collection to date that is signed by him, despite studying and collecting Houdini for over 45 years.

In a future post, I will share a condensed summary of the first 29 publications (9/18/1920 to 4/2/1921) of Houdini’s School Days leading up to the final publication (4/9/1921), Houdini’s Last Great Stunt at Rathgar.

Last year, I shared five of the six 1978 Stuart Pharmaceutical calendars from the series numbered DM-17301 to DM-17306:

1. January/February(George Goebel Collection)
2. March/April (HHCE Collection)
3. May/June (HHCE Collection)
4. July/August (HHCE Collection)
5. September/October (Missing)
6. November/December (HHCE Collection)

And today, I share the missing September/October (DM-17305) calendar, thanks to Roger Dreyer at houdinireavealed.com and an alert from John Cox.

Related:

• Roger Dreyer launches “Houdini Revealed” (1-3)
• Roger Dreyer’s Houdini Revealed, Parts 4-6
• Roger Dreyer’s Houdini Reveals, Parts 7-8

Herbert Allingham was the writer of a number of short story series that Houdini attached his name with:

• Jorkins & Co (Film Fun)
• The Amazing Exploits of Houdini (The Kinema Comic)
• Houdini’s Schooldays (Merry and Bright)

This week we explore, Allingham’s contribution to The Amazing Exploits of Houdini.

According to Julia Jones book, Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory, “Allingham had contributed a series of Houdini stories for the Kinema Comic in which he invented a cheerful cockney named Arth Wright as a resourceful boy assistant for the escapologist and had introduced him to one of his series detectives, Pelham Webb.”   And Julia’s thesis implies, “The story series had opened in 1922 and the first thirty of these ‘Amazing Exploits’ had been written by Allingham… Early in 1923 however, F.C. Cordwell, editor of The Kinema Comic, instructed Allingham to drop Houdini…Houdini was continued by other anonymous writers. ‘My price too high’, wrote Allingham in his diary.

But the ‘The Amazing Exploits of Houdini’ found in Kinema Comic, ran from April 24, 1920 to November 27, 1926.

For a complete list of all 343 issues of The Kinema Comic that contain “The Amazing Exploits of Houdini” see Houdini Periodical Bibliography References From 1898 – 2015 by Arthur Moses.  Note: The Oct 27, 1923 v4 n184 issue is the only one from the run that DOES NOT contain the series.

So, I am wondering if Allingham’s contribution to Kinema Comic started in 1920 or 1922?

I have copies of the first 7 issues from 1920 and have read the October 14, 1922 issue.

October 14 1922 issue

It appears that the October 14, 1922 issue is when Arth Wright makes his first appearance, so that would confirm 1922.

• Not Quite a Joke (October 14, 1922)

And the first 7 issues don’t read like Allingham to me.

• The Bride and the Orangutan (April 24, 1920)
• The Jewel Thieves (May 1, 1920)
• “Stop Thief!” (May 8, 1920)
• The Gold Melters (May 15, 1920)
• Adventure of the Midland Express (May 22, 1920)
• In the Dead of Night (May 29, 1920)
• Out of the Sky (June 5, 1920)

That said, I have tried unsuccessfully to get ahold of Julia Jones to get her thoughts on whether Allingham could have contributed to the earlier stories or were they written by others?

A diary entry for 10 June 1920 states that Allingham ‘went to New Cross and saw Houdini. Fixed up with him about school days’.

Houdini’s Schooldays Series started September 1920 in Merry and Bright, 5 months after the Amazing Exploits of Houdini series started in Kinema Comic, so…

Unfortunately, there is not an earlier diary mention for Kinema Comic, nor earlier copies of Kinema Comic than 1922 in the extraordinary archive of sixteen boxes of Allingham material that Julia Jones got to sort and collate.

At the Fortune Telling Hearings:

Houdini flashed $10,000 in U.S. currency as a challenge to any medium to tell them what his father had nicknamed him, then Madame Maria jumped up and screamed, “That money belongs to me! …” [Kalush p 482]

Kalush source was the New York Times, February 27, 1926 where it mentions:

Once he issued a general challenge to them to tell just what his mother had called him when he was a boy, but no Spirtiualist ventured to furnish that information and Houdini did not offer it.

If you think you know the answer, of what either parent of Houdini nicknamed him, please email me.

H A P P Y  F A T H E R ‘ S  D A Y !

Herbert Allingham was the writer of a number of short story series that Houdini attached his name with:

• Jorkins & Co (Film Fun)
• The Amazing Exploits of Houdini (The Kinema Comic)
• Houdini’s Schooldays (Merry and Bright)

This week we explore the not widely known, Jorkins & Co.

According to Julia Jones (author of Fifty Years in the Fiction Factory),  ‘Jorkins & Co’, was a short story series developed from The Duffer, Detective (True Blue, 1906), and ascribed in Film Fun to Houdini, the Handcuff King.

Below is Julia Jones summary, along with some Chapter I excerpts of The Duffer, Detective:

• Summary

‘Holt [aka The “Duffer” or “Houdini”] of Emmanuel’ is no timid non-collegiate student but a young man with ‘a certain easy swagger in his walk’.  He is however, short of cash (trouble with the trustees) so has summoned his old school friend, Arthur Merlin, down first-class from London in order to make use of Merlin’s L500 inheritance. Holt needs money to rescue an acquaintance called Jorkins, who has taken over his father’s jewellery shop in Clerkenwell and has subsequently disappeared.  Merlin is not instantly enthusiastic.

 

• Chapter I excerpts

‘Can’t you see that you are spoiling your life for the sake of a silly juggins who is probably in no trouble at all and who, even if he is, is not worth saving?’

‘Jorkins is my friend,’ replied Holt gravely.

Merlin sprang to his feet impatiently and walked nervously up and down the room.

‘Oh, of course,’ he cried irritably, ‘I know it’s no use arguing with you. Well what is the idiotic programme? Suppose I refuse to let you have a penny of my money?

Over the Duffer’s face came the charming smile which Merlin could never resist in the old days

‘In that improbable event,’ he replied, sweetly, ‘I should go to London and accept a situation as a clerk that has been offered to me at eighteen shillings a week, and in the evenings I should pursue my investigations.’

Merlin relents of course.

‘Oh Duffer,’ he cried,’ You are hopeless. Well we’ll have some fun and when our five hundred is spent we’ll go into the workhouse together.’

‘The workshouse! My dear Merlin, what an unpleasant suggestion! On the contrary when we have spent all our money we will earn some more. Really I begin to hope that my trustees will not relent. It would be rather fun to work for one’s living.’

‘Not much fun clerking on eighteen shillings a week, Merlin suggested.

Allingham’s  young men gallop out of Cambridge, knocking over the university proctor and his ‘bulldogs’.

‘Forward Merlin!’ cried the Duffer. ‘There is no time to apologise now. I must write to the the good man from town.’ Dons and townsfolk try to block their exit but Merlin and the Duffer are saved by a crowd of undergraduates.

The next moment the gallant steed with its double burden was thundering down the lane.

It  bore them across Parker’s Piece, in an out of the narrow streets beyond and then across the green that borders the River Cam.

They heard behind them a terrific uproar and it was clear that Town and Gown had come to blows but the pursuit was not continued.

‘It seems they’ve had enough of you, Duffer,’ said Merlin. ‘I fear your ‘Varsity career closes today.’

‘I fear so,’ admitted the Duffer, rather sadly. ‘It’s been a very happy time, but when duty calls one must not hesitate. Jorkins cries to us for help and he shall not cry in vain.’

While I have been unable to locate a copy of Film Fun’s “Jorkins & Co” (aka The Duffer, Detective) yet, I do have a copy of True Blue’s “The Duffer, Detective” (by David Pitt aka Herbert Allingham) which was 7 chapters:

• CHAPTER I (above)
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII

Just received a copy of November/December 2020 Michigan History magazine with an article inside about “Houdini in Detroit” by Jeremy Dimick, director of collections at the Detroit Historical Society.

While there are few errors regarding dates, it is very well done.

It covers Houdini’s performances in Detroit from when he was relegated to the Curio Hall to his performances as a headliner.

A few things of interest caught my attention:

1. Jail escape photo [from The Grim Game 1919] dated as 1898.
2. The Belle Isle Bridge Stunt. To amp up the drama, Houdini completed and signed his will before he “yelled a reckless goodbye to the awe-inspired throng and dove headlong to his fate”
3. In a 1908 visit, he and his wife were locked in their hotel room at the Hotel Ste. Claire by a rascally bellboy.  When Houdini rang the front desk to let him out, the bellboy called the newspaper and crowed that he had beat the great Houdini.
4. 1911 advertisement, Houdini expresses his openness to “accept any rational challenge” from Detroiter’s during his Temple Theatre performance (photo courtesy of the Detroit Historical Society.
5. He was in such pain that one of his handlers wired ahead for a doctor to meet them at Michigan Central Station when they arrived at 2:30pm on October 26 [October 24].
6. [It goes on to describe the events according to Sophie Rosenblatt, that HHCE first shared in 2019]
   • What really happened on October 24th, 1926 between the train arriving and the show in Detroit?

You can purchase Michigan History HERE.

Below are B&W and color images of the “Apology in the Name of the Kaiser” poster that we are most familar with:

In 2018, our friend John Cox at Wild About Houdini, did a post on a poster variant:

Variant #1 tipped in a “Unmasking” book and also found on p8 of Houdini on Magic by Walter B. Gibson

Well, I recently came across another variant:

Variant #2 from Museum of the City of New York (MCNY)

Bonus:

Undated placemat (?) from Alexander’s Restaurant & Bar  (HHCE Collection)