Escaping Obscurity - The Travel Diary of Harry Houdini, 1897-1899 (Deluxe Edition)

After two long years of work, I am pleased to announce the release of Escaping Obscurity - The Travel Diary of Harry Houdini, 1897-1899. Yes, there are scores of books on the life of Houdini but I can assure you that none of them tell this amazing story. The journal begins with 24-year-old Harry presenting a standard magic act in dime museums, circuses, small-time vaudeville, and spiritualist chambers. He and Bess are barely eeking out a living. Each of their tiny successes and all of their dramatic failures were dutifully recorded in a small travel diary. The end of this hard-scrabble story reads like a movie script. Houdini received a telegram from Martin Beck, the head of the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, telling him to drop the magic tricks and concentrate on his escapes. Houdini took Beck’s advice and one year later he was a bonafide superstar on both sides of the Atlantic. Escaping Obscurity reproduces Beck’s telegram that changed the course of Houdini’s career and the magic world at large.

Three things made me want to publish this nearly illegible diary. First, the great Houdini historian, John Cox, agreed to decipher and then annotate the text found on each and every page. Second, my friends in the magic collecting world stepped up with an unbelievable array of suitable photographs, many of which have never appeared in print. And lastly, my old friend and graphic designer extraordinaire, Michael Albright, agreed to assemble this complicated jig-saw puzzle into a beautiful, full-color book of 373 pages measuring 9 by 12 inches. The final result is nothing sort of breathtaking.

Deluxe Edition

Here is what makes these 150 copies DELUXE. My friend Bill Kalush at the Conjuring Arts Research Center has an 8.5 by 11 inch printing block circa 1894 that shows Harry and Bess with their latest sensation, Metamorphosis. This historic image represents the first example of graphic advertising used by Harry and Bess Houdini.

Bill kindly lent me this priceless artifact and using a vintage Vandercook proof press, we created original prints of this historic image. Each original print is protected by an archival mylar sleeve, and then tipped into the front of the book. The facing page features a second tip-in, a limitation sheet numbered 1 - 150 that carries the signatures of the diary’s owner Bruce Averbook; author John Cox; designer Michael Albright; and publisher Mike Caveney. It also features a photograph of these original prints as they were being printed on the proof press.

And then there is the slip case which is unlike any other. It looks like a water-damaged box that has been abused over the course of 125 years, and that’s because it perfectly replicates the front and back covers of Houdini’s original diary. A perfect reminder of the difficult life that this little diary experienced during the first three years of its life.

Click through the nine photos to see the front cover of the book, the back cover, the front of the slip case, the back of the slip case, the two tip-ins, and a selection of spreads from inside the book.

The price for the deluxe edition is $245. We will pay the postage on all domestic orders. We expect them to sell out quickly.