It's not often we get a non-fiction work on Houdini this significant. The book is a whopping 436 pages and examines the full story behind Houdini's investigation of Mina Crandon aka "Margery." It also covers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his own connections to Houdini, Margery and the spiritualist movement.
I'm 100 pages into the book and I'm enjoying it immensely! It's extremely well researched and very well written, and I'm thinking it might end up rivaling Christopher Sandford's Houdini and Conan Doyle as the best examination yet of Houdini's anti-spiritualism activities. I will post a full review later this month.
David Jaher will be making several appearances throughout October and November promoting the book, including giving an illustrated lecture at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn on October 16. You can view a full list of his upcoming appearance at the official Witch of Lime Street website.
The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World can be purchased at Amazon.com (U.S.) and Amazon.co.uk (UK). It's also available as an Unabridged Audiobook.
UPDATE: REVIEW: The Witch of Lime Street is no fraud.
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I have to say this is the worst biography of Houdini ever.
ReplyDeleteMaking up facts as you go along.
By page 100, I had to shelve it.
How could you be so far from the facts??????
Jon Oliver
Really? I've spotted a few small errors (that he picked up from other bios), but overall I think the book is excellent. I don't see anything here that has been "made up." Almost done.
DeleteCan you show where Houdini was rescued by deep sea divers in
Deletethe ocean. Or how about him performing the Vanishing Elephant on Broadway after the showing of The Man From Beyond.
Bess and the other Florial Sisters played Beer Halls. The other
I mentioned about him pawning his fathers watch so to hire a medium.
Like Ruth Brandon he too calls Jenny by the wrong name.
Jon Oliver
I admit I don't remember any mention of a rescue by deep sea diver in the book. Do you have page number for that?
DeleteBut Houdini did do the vanishing elephant at the Time Sq. Theater with showings of TMFB, and the elephant he used at that time was not Jennie. It was a smaller elephant that could have been named Fannie as he says (I don't recall the name, would need to look up). He says the Floral Sisters played "Beer Halls on the Bowery", which I'd consider correct. Weren't all the Halls on Coney's Bowery essentially Beer Halls? And the watch/medium thing comes from the Chris Standford book.
But I'll be posting a full review today. I acknowledge he makes a few biographical mistakes. ALL books do. But he's very strong in his core area of research -- 1920-1926 -- which is what the book is really all about. I think if you would have continued you would have found a lot of value in this book.
Oh, the "deep sea divers" rescue is also true. He's talking about the incident on Catalina when Houdini tried to save men in a boat trapped in the current and became trapped himself. Pat Culliton reproduced the full newspaper account in The Key. It was also apparently all caught on film.
DeleteHow he writes it might make it seem as if the divers saved Houdini underwater, which is maybe why it didn't seem familiar to you. But the rescue took place on the surface.
I've posted my REVIEW HERE.
ReplyDelete