Harry Ransom Center Exhibition Explores Harry Houdini's Library and the Art of Escape

Key facts

• "Houdini's Library" is on view at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin through January 24, 2027.
• Harry Houdini (1874–1926) assembled a research collection of books, manuscripts, playbills, and prints on magic, spiritualism, and stage practices.
• In a 1919 letter to librarian Alfred Becks, Houdini wrote that during a turbulent flight to Catalina Island he thought of his wife and theatrical collection.
• The exhibition opens with Metamorphosis, an early substitution act Houdini performed with his wife, Bess.
• A June 1916 article in the exhibition records Houdini's claim to possess "the largest collection (private or public) in the world" of magic-related material.
• Houdini's 1908 book The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin used his collection to expose Robert-Houdin's alleged appropriations of earlier performers' illusions.
• Henry "Box" Brown (1816–1897), born into slavery in Virginia, escaped in 1849 by being shipped in a wooden crate to Philadelphia and later reenacted his liberation onstage.
• The catalog Houdini's Library: Inside the Spellbinding Collections of the Great Illusionist was published in conjunction with the exhibition, with author and curator Eric Colleary photographing himself before Houdini's grave in New York.
• The Ransom Center's Gutenberg Bible (1454–56) is one of only twenty complete surviving copies.
• Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras (1827), regarded as the earliest surviving camera obscura photograph, is displayed nearby.