A Rare Peek At The Vanishing Elephant

 

On my recent podcast interview with Eric Colleary, the curator of Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center in Texas, and the man responsible for the new book and exhibit Houdini's Library, we talked about missing Houdini posters. I said, I was fairly confident Houdini must have had a poster for the biggest trick in history. Eric said there were actually two mock-ups of potential posters in the collection. 

One of these was made into a greeting card, which he was kind enough to mail to me. It is a wonderful piece and you can just imagine what the finished product might have looked like. Clearly this is an artist rendition of what the effect might have looked like. 

In real life, we know some sort of box was rolled around the elephant, but beyond that, the actual details vary from person to person. Some claiming the effect was unbelievable. Others saying they really couldn't see what was happening, due to sight restrictions. None of the props used in the effect remain, or at least are known to remain. Perhaps someone has a small garage in NY, that once was actually the box for an elephant, lol!

The Houdini's Library Exhibition is currently running at the University of Texas/Austin, and will continue to run until late January 2027. 

In case you missed the episode with the interview, here is the link: https://magicdetectivepodcast.com/e/ep-118-dr-eric-colleary-houdinis-library/

And I don't usually do this, but I also recommend you listen to Adrian Tenant's interview with Eric Colleary, his link is here: https://themagicbookpodcast.com/episode/dr-eric-colleary-houdinis-library

The two interviews are very different and should help to answer a lot of questions that might remain.

Houdini's Library by Eric Colleary Featured This Week

 

Dr Eric Colleary, curator of Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin Texas was my guest on episode 118 of the Magic Detective Podcast. Eric spoke about his upcoming book and the exhibit of the same name, Houdini's Library which is running until Jan 24, 2027. 

It was a very informative talk. He gave us the history of Houdini's collections, where they went to, who ended up with them, how some items ended up in places that maybe they shouldn't have. There was more here than I expected. Eric even recalled some names I didn't immediately  remember, one in particular Henry Evans who went by the stage name Evanion. You can read more about Evanion here, or on Episode 33 of my podcast. Which is not to be confused with Henry Ridgely Evans, who we also spoke about but who is an entirely different individual. 

Houdini loved his library. It was massive. One thing I love about this talk was Eric said Houdini didnt just collect these books and things, but he also went through them, looked at the items, read the books. His library was extremely valuable to him and highly cherished. This is documented in various letters that Houdini wrote.

During this episode you will also hear about a mysterious Houdini Bookcase, which is different from the one that was in the Houdini home on 278 and is now in the Copperfield collection. 

You can hear the podcast episode by clicking this link.

Now, on September 17th at 6pm central, Eric Colleary will be speaking at the Harry Ransom Center on his book and doing a reading from the book as well. This is being live streamed on youtube for anyone interested in viewing it.  Click below for the link on September 17th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGOl5Q_TjBY