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:
- A Regular Duffer (True Blue 1904)
- Will Holt’s Schooldays (Aldine Library c1908)
- Chums at Rathgar (Puck 1911)
- 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.
