Select Secrets: Rare & Important Magicana

Houdini, Harry (Ehrich Weisz). Psychical Research Journal Annotated and Signed by Houdini. The March 1925 issue of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (Vol. XIX, No. 3). Orange printed wrappers with portrait frontispiece of Mina Crandon, the medium known as “Margery.” Twenty pages deal with observations of Margery’s supposed ability to contact the dead, many of these being annotated by Houdini in ink, with some passages or words underlined, and several marginal comments in his hand initialed by him. Numerous additional annotations in red crayon, possibly by Houdini but likely by his secretary Oscar Teale, also fill the margins. With the bookplate of Houdini’s secretary Oscar Teale pasted inside the front wrapper. Dr. Grossman blindstamp to front wrapper, chipping around extremities, spine mostly perished, but sound and in good condition overall. Both Houdini’s inked notations and those in red crayon are biting. In one instance Houdini comments on the apparent materialization of a disembodied hand in Margery’s séance room: “ROT. I saw hand…& it is not even a good feke [imitation].” In other instances he calls a sitter at the séance an “accomplice,” or directly questions assertions in the articles. The red notations do likewise, drawing into question the methods used to test Margery and supposedly “prove” her to be a genuine spirit medium.