HOUDINI, Harry (Erik Weisz). The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin, Inscribed Copy with Signed Photographs and Annotated; and a Signed Pitch Book. New York: Printers Publishing Co., 1908. Publisher’s pictorial cloth (covers rubbed, hinges slightly tender). Portrait frontispiece with tissue guard; plates and numerous text illustrations. 8vo. FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY HOUDINI TO R.E.E. SPENCER on the front flyleaf: “To my friend/R.E.E. Spencer/Best wishes/from the author/Harry Houdini/May 6-1920/’at least read the introduction-thanks/HH”. Annotated and initialed on page 32 of the introduction, “Mrs. Frikell has sinced [sic] passed away/HH” (in this concluding section of the introduction, Houdini discusses the magician Wiljalba Frikell). WITH THREE PHOTOGRAPHS OF HOUDINI WITH HIS SIGNATURE OR AN INSCRIPTION MOUNTED ON THE FRONT AND REAR ENDLEAVES, including:
1) a matte-finish photograph of a smiling Houdini, SIGNED in the upper right corner, “Houdini” and underlined.
2) a rare, possibly unpublished photograph of Houdini in shackles, lying on his stomach, INSCRIBED; “This test nearly “did” me – but I escaped in 11 minutes. The band around my neck “played” Hail Columbia?”
3) a photograph postcard, titled in the negative “Harry Handcuff Houdini,” INSCRIBED AND SIGNED: “as manacled by the Russian/Police 1903/Houdini”.
[WITH]: Houdini’s pitch book, The Adventurous Life of a Versatile Artist (Leicester: Willsons’, 1920), without wrappers, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED by Houdini to Spencer on the first page of text (top edge chipped, with loss to inscription, signature unaffected).
The two volumes housed together in a custom drop-spine box lined with black velvet, stamped in black with lock decoration to cover and spine; the pitch book held in a chemise within.
AN EXCEPTIONAL SIGNED COPY WITH THREE ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND A SIGNED PITCH BOOK, presented by Houdini to Maj. R.E.E. Spencer (c. 1864 – 1923), a psychic investigator whose greatest interest was in spirit photography. A pair of photomicrographs by Spencer were reproduced in Conan Doyle’s The Case for Spirit Photography (1923). His experiments and correspondence on spirit photography were printed in a number of psychic journals in the 1910s-20s, likely leading to his association and friendship with Houdini.