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قراءة كتاب The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin

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‏اللغة: English
The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin

The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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research and study I would unearth history yet unwritten, and record unsung triumphs of this great inventor and artiste. The pen of his most devoted student and follower would awaken new interest in his history.

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Robert-Houdin in his prime, immediately after his retirement. From the Harry Houdini Collection.
Robert-Houdin in his prime, immediately after his retirement. From the Harry Houdini Collection.

Alas for my golden dreams! My investigations brought forth only bitterest disappointment and saddest of disillusionment. Stripped of his self-woven veil of romance, Robert-Houdin stood forth, in the uncompromising light of cold historical facts, a mere pretender, a man who waxed great on the brainwork of others, a mechanician who had boldly filched the inventions of the master craftsmen among his predecessors.

“Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, Ambassador, Author and Conjurer, Written by Himself,” proved to have been the penwork of a brilliant Parisian journalist, employed by Robert-Houdin to write his so-called autobiography. In the course of his “Memoirs,” Robert-Houdin, over his own signature, claimed credit for the invention of many tricks and automata which may be said to have marked the golden age in magic. My investigations disproved each claim in order. He had announced himself as the first magician to appear in regulation evening clothes, discarding flowing sleeves and heavily draped stage apparatus. The credit for this revolution in conjuring belonged to Wiljalba Frikell. Robert-Houdin’s explanation of tricks performed by other magicians and not included in his repertoire, proved so incorrect and inaccurate as to brand him an ignoramus in certain lines of conjuring. Yet to the great charm of his diction and the romantic development of his personal reminiscences later writers have yielded unquestioningly and have built upon the historically weak foundations of his statements all the later so-called histories of magic.

For a time the disappointment killed all creative power. With no laurel wreath to carve, my tools lay idle. The spirit of investigation languished. Then came the reaction. There was work to be done. Those who had wrought honestly deserved the credit that had been taken from them. In justice to the living as well as the dead the history of the magic must be revised. The book, accepted for more than half a century as an authority on our craft, must stand forth for what it is, a clever romance, a well-written volume of fiction.

That is why to-day I offer to the profession of magic, to the world of laymen readers to whom its history has always appealed, and to the literary savants who dip into it as a recreation, the results of my investigations. These, I believe, will show Robert-Houdin’s true place in the history of magic and give to his predecessors, in a profession which in each generation becomes more serious and more dignified, the credit they deserve.

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Frontispiece of “Hocus Pocus,” Second Edition, 1635, one of the earliest works on magic. From the Harry Houdini Collection.
Frontispiece of “Hocus Pocus,” Second Edition, 1635, one
of the earliest works on magic. From the Harry Houdini Collection.

My investigations cover nearly twenty years of a busy professional career. Every hour which I could spare from my professional work was given over to study in libraries, to interviews with retired magicians and collectors, and to browsing in old bookstores and antique shops where rare collections of programs, newspapers, and prints might be found.

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John Baptist Porta, the Neapolitan writer on magic. From an old woodcut in the Harry Houdini Collection.
John Baptist Porta, the Neapolitan writer on magic. From an old woodcut in the Harry Houdini Collection.

In order to conduct my researches intelligently, I was compelled to pick up a smattering of the language of each country in which I played. The average collector or proprietor of an old bookshop is a canny, suspicious individual who must accept you as a friend before he will uncover his choicest treasures.

As authorities, books on magic and kindred arts are practically worthless. The earliest books, like the magician stories written by Sir John Mandeville in 1356, read like prototypes of to-day’s dime novels. They are thrilling tales of travellers who witnessed magical performances, but they are not authentic records of performers and their work.

One of the oldest books in my collection is “Natural and Unnatural Magic” by Gantziony, dated 1489. It is the author’s script, exquisite in its German chirography, artistic in its illuminated illustrations, but worthless as an historical record, though many of the writer’s descriptions and explanations of old-time tricks are most interesting.

Early in the seventeenth century appeared “Hocus Pocus,” the most widely copied book in the literature of magic. The second edition, dated 1635, I have in my library. I have never been able to find a copy of the first edition or to ascertain the date at which it was published.

A few years later, in 1658, came a very important contribution to the history of magic in “Natural Magick in XX. Bookes,” by John Baptist Porta, a Neapolitan. This has been translated into nearly every language. It was the first really important and exhaustive work on the subject, but, unfortunately, it gives the explanation of tricks, rather than an authentic record of their invention.

In 1682, Simon Witgeest of Amsterdam, Holland, wrote an admirable work, whose title reads “Book of Natural Magic.” This work was translated into German, ran through many an edition, and had an enormous sale in both Holland and Germany.

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Frontispiece from Simon Witgeest’s “Book of Natural Magic” (1682), showing the early Dutch conception of conjuring. From the Harry Houdini Collection.
Frontispiece from Simon Witgeest’s “Book of Natural Magic” (1682), showing the early Dutch conception of conjuring. From the Harry Houdini Collection.

In 1715, John White, an Englishman, published a work entitled “Art’s Treasury and Hocus Pocus; or a Rich Cabinet of Legerdemain Curiosities.” This is fully as reliable a book as the earlier “Hocus Pocus” books,

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