The Right Way to Do Wrong

HARRY HOUDINI
(1874–1926) was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, the son of a rabbi. The family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, when he was four, and changed their name from Weisz to Weiss, and Erik to Ehrich. To help support the family, Houdini first performed on stage in a trapeze act at the age of nine. After moving to New York at age 12, he became interested in magic, and concocted a stage name: ‘Harry' was an Americanized version of his nickname, Ehrie, and ‘Houdini' was inspired by magician Robert Houdin. Houdini's big break came in 1899 when he was offered a contract to perform on the best vaudeville stages in the US. Now known as the “Handcuff King,” Houdini toured Europe for five years, and upon returning to the U.S. began to perform the death-defying stunts that would make him one of the most famous people in the world, and one of the most popular early movie stars. He published
The Right Way to Do Wrong
in 1906 and edited
Conjurers' Monthly Magazine
in 1906–7. Towards the end of his life he famously dedicated himself to debunking spiritualists, even having an intense public feud with spiritualist-believer Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1926, after a performance in Montreal, an admirer visiting him backstage punched an unprepared Houdini in the stomach to test his famous muscle control. Houdini's appendix ruptured and, after peritonitis set in, he died—after one last performance in Detroit—at age 52.

TELLER
has been the quieter half of magic duo Penn & Teller since 1975. He has written five books and enjoyed successful runs on Broadway, sold-out world tours, starring roles in TV series, and the longest-running headline act in Las Vegas. He is an Emmy, Writers Guild Award, Obie and Drama Critics Circle winner.

THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY

I was by no means the only reader of books on board the
Neversink.
Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much
.

—
HERMAN MELVILLE,
WHITE JACKET

CONTENTS

Cover

About the Author

Epigraph

Title Page

Copyright

INTRODUCTION
by Teller

THE RIGHT WAY TO DO WRONG

Helpful Hints for Young Magicians Under Eighty

Addressing an Audience

The French Letter Cuff

Light on the Subject of Jailbreaking as Done by My Imitators

The Cologne Libel Suit

Rope Ties

Sword-Swallowing

Stone-Eaters

Defiers of Poisonous Reptiles

Cryptography

The Right Way to Do Wrong

Houdini knew marketing. He called himself “The Great Self-Liberator, World's Handcuff King, and Prison-Breaker.” That was the brand he hammered home to the public as he built his career. And it stuck.

When we think of Houdini, we picture a defiant little muscle man with penetrating blue eyes; we see a prisoner naked except for manacles bundled in front of his crotch; baffled police returning to a prison cell from which Houdini has inexplicably vanished; a handcuffed madman stripped to shorts and plummeting from a bridge to certain death in a river; a human sacrifice, straitjacketed, hanging by his ankles upside down over a mobbed metropolitan street as he writhes and thrashes, rips himself free, then drops the straitjacket into the sea of upturned faces and extends his arms for applause like an inverted Jesus.

But as with any good brand, the image oversimplifies the product. The public's invulnerable jock superhero had an intellectual side. One Houdini autograph reads, “My brain is the key that sets me free.” Houdini revered learning (his father was a rabbi) and was pained by his limited education (he went to school only till the sixth grade).
But Houdini made a specialty of steamrolling obstacles. As he built his career, he invested most of his fortune in books. His collection filled his home from basement to attic. He employed a librarian and once boasted to a correspondent, “You know, I actually live in a library.” When he died in 1926, his books were valued at half a million dollars, the equivalent of more than $6 million today. A portion of Houdini's collection is one of the treasures of the Library of Congress.

Houdini also aspired to be a writer. His expertise was in deception, both legitimate (magic) and illegitimate (crime), and he turned out fascinating books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles. You are about to read some of his liveliest and least known writings.

You'll notice two contrasting voices in Houdini's style. One is brash and sounds like a tough little street-fighter. That's raw Houdini, the sixth-grade-educated self-made man braying out his very definite views. The other style is all curlicued and upholstered, with ten-dollar Latinate words, complex sentences, and quotations from classical literature. The content is Houdini's, but translated from sideshow to lecture hall by ghostwriters who made him sound like the literate individual his rabbi father might have admired.

In the raw Houdini category, we've unearthed choice selections from
Conjurers' Monthly Magazine
, a trade journal Houdini put out filled with news, history, and advice for brother magicians. Here he talks nuts and bolts about magical performance. Houdini worked in an age before electronic amplification, when stage stars needed voices like opera singers. Houdini teaches you how you, too, can launch your consonants to the cheap seats.