Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins Part IV

Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz). Fantastic Autograph Album with Houdini, Chung Ling Soo, and Others. Leather-bound autograph album (6 ½ x 8”) filled with signatures principally obtained at theatrical venues of the 1900s-10s, mostly in Glasgow and Bath, England. Featuring Houdini, who signs on the first page: “Glasgow Sept 23/04/’Stone walls do not a prison make, or iron bars a cage’/Yours with best wishes to you all from we all/Harry Handcuff Houdini” and by Bess, Houdini’s wife and assistant, just below: “Little me too/Mrs. Beatrice Houdini.” Chung Ling Soo signs “With all good wishes/Chung Ling Soo” and with faux Chinese characters. Scores of other music hall and variety artists, actors and actresses, and musicians represented in the album, including John Philip Sousa (with quotation from “The Fairest of the Fair”), Vesta Tilley, George Lashwood, “Carlton” (Arthur Philips), Paul Cinquevalli (juggler), Edward Compton and Viola Compton Mackenzie, Austin Rudd, Daley Cooper, Edith Drayson, George D’Albert, May Moore Duprez, George M. Schilling (champion long-distance walker), Wee Georgie Wood (dwarf actor), among numerous entries. Signed typically one or two per page, many accompanied by inscriptions, some drawings, and quotations. Backstrip perished, covers peeling, contents shaken with several loose gatherings. With a PSA/DNA LOA for the Houdini signature.