Houdini

Houdini was a complete artist and an inexhaustible innovator. In addition to his spectacular escapes, he mastered the art of stage illusionism to perfection: he was a great propagandist and a master of publicity and knew how to take advantage of the emerging power of the media, promoting his name better than any other magician of his time. He also starred in silent films, was an aviation pioneer, editor, writer and became an active militant against the spiritualist movement after the death of his mother -with whom he was obsessed-. Through a delightful immersion in the golden age of magic, this work aims to become the most complete and modern biography published in Spanish about the great escapist magician. The author, who handles an abundant and select documentation, explains in detail his tricks and challenges, breaks with his most common myths and meticulously recounts the events that triggered his unexpected death on Halloween night in 1926. A Hungarian immigrant of Jewish origin, Erik Weisz disembarked at the age of four in the port of New York accompanied by his mother, his siblings and a couple of old suitcases to mingle with the endless stream of immigrants coming from Europe. He decided to bet everything on what he believed to be his true calling: the world of magic and escapology. He adopted the stage name Harry Houdini and began a career that would captivate audiences by performing highly complicated tests and improbable challenges. He tested himself daily, loading his body with shackles, padlocks and handcuffs, and defying all forms of restraint and confinement. For almost three decades, he tried to escape from the most daring traps, prisons, coffins, chests, sacks, cages and deep rivers, and let himself be subjected to painful sessions of immobilization, imprisonment and drowning. The number of stories about his wonders is so overwhelming that it sometimes borders on the unthinkable.